Joanna Gaines is watching her kids approach adulthood, one milestone at a time.
On Monday, Joanna, 41, posted a photo on Instagram with her oldest child, 15-year-old son Drake, receiving his driver’s permit and earning a new level of independence as he gets ready to get behind the wheel of a car. The day proved emotional for the mom of five, who reflected on raising her children.
“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,” she began the caption, then comparing her teenager to her youngest son, Crew, 20 months.
“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),” wrote Joanna. “He used to reach for my hand when climbing the stairs so I could help him and now he insists on doing it himself.”
She added: “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.”
The Fixer Upper star — who also shares daughters Emmie Kay, 10, Ella Rose, 13, and son Duke, 11, with husband Chip Gaines — concluded her sentimental post by acknowledging that her job as mom is to prepare her kids for adulthood.
“Parenthood is all about training these babies up to eventually let them go,” she wrote. “May we savor all the big and quiet moments along the way. 💙”
In 2018, Chip and Joanna opened up to PEOPLE about their parenting style, admitting they can be “strict” when it comes to some aspects of raising children — and shared their reluctance toward their babies growing up.
“It’s funny, I’m a little more laid back than I thought I’d be,” Joanna said at the time. “[There are] certain things that I really care about, but I think the funny part, with Chip, is just the video games, the TV. That’s where he kinda gets a little strict. It’s, ‘You go play outside.’”
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She added: “I don’t even know what’s gonna happen when the girls start asking to wear makeup, but we keep telling our kids they don’t get a phone until they go off to college.”
When it comes to their kids eventually dating, Chip, 45, said he’d be a “good dad when it comes to that.”
“I want my kids to date; I want them to go out,” he said. “I just remember great experiences as a kid, you know? Driving your car for the first time, picking up a young lady on a date for the first time. All those were little milestones to some extent.”
Joanna joked, “That’s where I’m gonna turn on the crazy.”
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