Savannah Guthrie opens up about her mom's most selfless act

TODAY's Savannah Guthrie says it wouldn't have taken very much for her to forgo her first job in favor of staying home with her mom.

"My father died when I was entering my senior year in high school. I then lived at home all through college. We didn't have money to afford the dorm. And that was thing one, but the other was that my sister and I really felt like we should stick with my mom and not leave her alone," Savannah, 51, told TODAY co-host Jenna Bush Hager in 2022 of her mom, Nancy Guthrie.

She continued, "But when I moved to Butte, Montana, this was it. And it was really hard for me to leave her."

Savannah accepted her first news job in Montana at the age of 21 in a newsroom of four people.

"And that's when she said, 'If you can't leave me, then I didn't do my job right, Savannah,'" Savannah said of her mom's unselfish stance. "She just gave me permission to go, you know?"

The TODAY anchor says it would not have taken much to keep her at home.

"She could have held onto me," Savannah shared. "It wouldn't have taken very much. If she said, 'Well, you know, Savannah maybe you could find something a little closer to home...'"

Savannah said she recognized her mom's selfless gesture early on.

"It's not because she didn't want me to stay. Of course she wanted me to stay," the TODAY anchor recalled. "But she's like, 'I'm not going to stand in the way of your dreams. I'm going to tell you, go go go go go.'"

Now a mom of two herself, to Vale, 8, and Charley, 6, Savannah reflected on the importance of allowing kids to learn and grow.

"You don't spoon feed your kids. You teach them how to eat for themselves," she told Jenna. "It's like everything. If we're doing it right, there, they should be self-sufficient. They're not supposed to be needy. They're not supposed to need us. And also, we're not supposed to be the center of their universes."

It's not the first time Savannah has shared advice from her mom. On May 10, the TODAY anchor revealed how her mom knew she would have kids "even as the years ticked by."

“When I was in my 30s, I really wished to be married and to be a mom, and things just did not happen that fast for me,” Savannah said on the TODAY Show. “And my mom’s confidence that I would be a mom — even as the years ticked by and ticked by and ticked by — meant so much to me.

“She said, ‘Of course you’ll be a mom, and you’re going to be a wonderful mom,’” Savannah continued. “And for her to have that confidence and faith was so meaningful to me. It got me through some really hard times.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com