Chip Gaines Reveals Joanna’s Tearful Reaction When Their Son Hit a Major Milestone

Fixer Upper stars Chip Gaines and Joanna Gaines have already been through several major milestones with their children, but one recent event left Joanna in tears. Their oldest son, 16-year-old Drake, finally got his driver’s license in February — a milestone that was too much for the mom-of-five to handle. The couple is also parents to daughters Ella, 14, and Emmie, 10, and sons Duke, 12, and Crew, 2.

“I was so excited leading up to it, and Jo was too, kind of,” Chip, 46, said in the new issue of PEOPLE. “Then we get this kid his license, and the first morning he goes to drive, Jo bawls her eyes out. She was just devastated and wanted no part. She wants to hire him a chauffeur.” Joanna, 42, also shared a touching Instagram post on the day Drake got his driving permit in February 2020. At the time, Crew was just learning how to go up and down the stairs, and the two events happening so closely together led her to reflect on her experience as a parent.

“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,” Joanna wrote in February 2020. “Parenthood is all about training these babies up to eventually let them go. May we savor all the big and quiet moments along the way.”

Over a year later, Chip now understands that parenting each of their children in the same way is impossible since they all have different personalities and “purpose,” he told PEOPLE. “The idea of ‘It’s my way until you leave my house’ — we’re the opposite. Instead, it’s ‘You’re in our house, but this is a place for you to explore, experiment and process the feelings and thoughts that you have in a safe place,’” he explained.

Fixer Upper fans have watched the Gaines’ children grow over the years, and they continue to play important roles in the new shows their parents star in. They were recently seen in Breaking New Ground, a special released on the new discovery+ streaming platform that enters on their Magnolia Market at the Silos location in Waco, Texas, and their family farm. The couple took a year off from filming after the original Fixer Upper ended and are now preparing for the launch of their Magnolia Network.

The new channel will take over the DIY Network in January 2022, two years after the Gaines originally planned to launch Magnolia. Discovery+ subscribers will get an early preview though, when content launches there exclusively on July 15. Magnolia Network will feature Fixer Upper: Welcome Home, Magnolia Table, and other new shows. “Our plan has evolved along the way, but our original vision for this network has remained the same,” the Gaines said in February. “And it is our ongoing desire to create a space, whether in a streaming environment or on linear television, where people who watch a show on our network leave feeling like it was time well spent.”