Joanna and Chip Gaines have five children. They have two daughters, Ella, 13, and Emmie, 10, and three sons, Drake, 15, Duke, 11, and Crew who is almost two years old. Oof. I can’t imagine what it’s like to raise teenagers and toddlers at the same time. However, Joanna just gave some insight to that experience with her latest post on Instagram. The photo is of her oldest son getting his driving permit. In her caption she explained that while he was doing that, she was home helping Crew negotiate the stairs, explaining that, “circumstances with my boys is wide but the feeling on both is somehow the same.”
Her full caption read:
Drake waited in line for an hour and finally got called up to get his drivers permit and then my 15 year old little boy drove home with Chip and all of a sudden he is all grown up. It’s crazy because this morning I spent most of my time teaching Crew how to go up and down the stairs because he is still so wobbly (his weight is not distributed evenly quite yet). He used to reach for my hand when climbing the stairs so I could help him and now he insists on doing it himself.
The gap between these two circumstances with my boys is wide but the feeling on both is somehow the same. So many hard and beautiful moments of beginnings and ends.
Parenthood is all about training these babies up to eventually let them go. May we savor all the big a and quiet moments along the way. 💙
Joanna and Chip aren’t on my radar much, so I have to take what she’s saying on face value. (That’s my protection for saying something nice about them and then finding out from you all that they run a leg-warmer factory out of their barn using underfed kittens as knitters). My hope is that I, as a parent, am fulfilling Joanna’s idea that “parenthood is all about training these babies up to eventually let them go.” I also like Joanna’s metaphor about holding our children’s hands so they can navigate their way to independence. I’m not a very poetic person so I appreciate when people like Joanna put these thoughts out there so I can point to them and say, “yeah – that!”
Let’s hope Joanna keeps this harmonious vibe about her kids journey into adulthood because in 2018, Joanna had a different premonition. When People asked Chip and Joanna about their kids getting older, Chips said he was excited about what was to come, that he couldn’t wait for his kids to get to experience life markers such as dating and driving. Joanna, on the other hand, said, “That’s where I’m gonna turn on the crazy.” Like most parents, how we think we will react evolves with what we come to know about our kids. When my son threw himself down the stairs in a laundry basket at age six, the thought of him behind the wheel gave me panic attacks. But I couldn’t be more excited for the kid I know today, who is eligible for his drivers permit next month. Besides, with a two-year-old at home and a home-improvement empire growing into its own network, I don’t think Joanna’s going to have the energy to turn on the crazy. She’ll be delighted to have the extra driver to get everybody to where they need to be.
Photo credit: Instagram, Getty Images and WENN/Avalon Photos
I don’t follow her closely but that was a beautiful post.
I have two teenage drivers now and it’s terror interspersed with relief. I track them both with “Find my friends,” particularly when they are driving on the freeway. We live in the city and they both play sports and oftentimes have to drive 45+ minutes to the suburbs for games – part of me hates it because it scares me and part of me knows it’s part of letting go (plus I need the driving help).
Good luck w/your son driving, Hecate. I’d thought I’d be worried & protective when my kids learned to drive, but I was so exhausted by then, I welcomed getting out of some driving chores!
I really wonder if they will go for #6.
I thought I read they are divorcing? Am I dreaming or was that an actual rumor?
OMG it’s totally true they run that kitten-worker leg-warmer sweatshop!!! It’s just terrible! :))
That made me remember a time when I’d be breastfeeding my youngest and my oldest (high schooler) would run in to ask me what dinner was and when it would be ready. Shit like that. I’d be so annoyed, but thinking back brings tears lol. We all do what we gotta do when we gotta do it. And then we fondly reminisce.
I have been a huge fan of both of them since the beginning. Love Joanne’s style. I think they’ve had bumps along their path as they went from zero to Mach 7 in their professional lives, but I truly think they are good and decent people. Team Gaines. (PS KAISER – loved the disclaimer about the barn sweat shop and the starving kittens knitting — I can see a Beatrix Potter drawing that’s gone to the dark side. 😂)
I like them both and as much as they look like overnight successes they have worked hard and smart to get where they are. And they’re entertaining!
At the end of the day it’s hard not to respect them. I mean, way worse ppl (like the crime family in the White House) get un-earned success while their’s is entirely their own. Plus their Hearth and Hand by Magnolia items from Target are supah cute!
She strikes me as a “baby mom”. Like Kate (Middleton/Cambridge/Waity/Duchess/whatever) she seems to get broody and have baby fever as her kids get older. I know a few women like that, one of them had such a hard time with her youngest (of four) entering high school that she went out and adopted 3 toddlers. Now they’re entering high school, she’s approaching her mid 60’s and wondering “what the heck was I thinking?”
I wish I were a little more like that. I’m way better with tweens and teens, but really struggle with infants and toddlers.