Joanna Gaines Nails The Heartache Of Parenthood With One Side-By-Side Photo
"Babies don't keep," the mother of five wrote weeks after her youngest turned 4.
There’s nothing better, or worse, than watching your children grow up. The wonder in their eyes blooms and their tiny feet get... less and less cute. Their curiosity and creativity skyrocket as the marks on the height chart get higher and higher. The heartache of parenthood is real, and mom of five Joanna Gaines gets it.
In a new Instagram post, Gaines, 44, nails how difficult it is to move on from the “baby” stage as her son Crew enters his fourth year.
“Babies don't keep,” she wrote alongside a side-by-side photo of Crew swaddled up as an infant and then in present day. “Just pretending this FOUR year old is still a baby.”
Yep, in the blink of an eye our littles turn into full-blown kids — and it’s beautifully heartbreaking.
Gaines and her husband, Chip, welcomed Crew in June 2018. The Fixer Upper stars had just taken a step back from the spotlight when they received the happy news they would be adding another baby to their brood, which includes son Drake, 17, daughter Ella, 15, son Duke, 14, and daughter Emmie Kay, 12.
“It was a total surprise,” Waco, Texas native Joanna told People of the pregnancy. “But when we found out, it solidified that it was the right decision to leave when we did.”
The Gaines now own Magnolia Network, a new lifestyle channel run by Warner Bros. Discovery. The platform officially launched in January 2022 and has found success with shows like Fixer Upper: Welcome Home, Magnolia Table, The Lost Kitchen, Home Grown, Home Work, and The Established Home, among many others.
But Joanna says her children are and will always be her first priority and that motherhood “wakes me up. It’s my heart — these kids.”
She added to Jenna Bush Hager for Southern Living, “I had these babies and didn't realize how they would have every string of my heart. Everything I do, from the moment I get into my car to drive to work, I'm thinking, ‘Did I do everything I could to make those kids know that I love them?’ I'm a segmented person, but there is not a moment when they're not in my mind. I never thought it would be like that.”
Parenthood. It completely sucks you in.
