Joanna Gaines Gets Real With Why Letting Go Of Her Daughter Hits Different Than Her Son

Joanna Gaines is hardly new to change and she has, after all, built an empire by turning spaces and lives around. But this time, it's the world as she knows it that's being remodeled, and this time, it's personal. With her 18-year-old daughter, Ella, headed to college, the Fixer Upper star is opening up about why this particular goodbye is so much more difficult than when her eldest son, Drake, left the house.

In an emotional moment, shared during a recent interview with husband Chip Gaines, Joanna looked back on the mix of emotions leading up to Ella's graduation. "Ella, our second kiddo, she's graduating this year," Joanna said. "So e're going through that again with another kid leaving the nest and trying to stay emotionally stable." But when Chip gently inquired if this transition, all these years later, felt different than it had with their firstborn, their son, Drake, Joana didn't miss a beat. "Yes," she responded. "I think there's an emotional difference."

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And that distinction, as Joanna detailed, is all thanks to their close-knit mother-daughter bond, a tie that's firmly built on shared rituals, stolen moments, and cherished routines. From searching for finds in antique shops and plant stores to coffee dates that kept them together, face-to-face for quality uninterrupted time, Joanna and Ella developed a rhythm that now feels bound for an inevitable shift. "I kind of feel like I'm losing a friend in my everyday life," Joanna conceded. It's a mood that resonates with many parents, especially mothers, as they navigate the bittersweet milestones of their children growing older.

With the pride of packing a kid off to college there often comes a winy ache for the missing cup of coffee in your day, for the silence where a laugh used to be, for the fact that the little hand whose heat once woke you up every morning is now charts his or her own course. The emotional reno that Joanna is doing is also more personal than any project she's done on TV. It's a sobering reminder that parenting simply changes, sometimes in ways that pull a little harder at heart. As she and Chip prepare to release Ella into the world, Joanna makes space to hold the tears, the joy, and the transformation that will come. Entire fixer-uppers need a little time to find their footing, after all.