Chip recently spoke with Kennebec Cabin Company about the decision to include the Gaines’ children – Drake, 18; Ella Rose, 16; Duke, 14; Emmie Kay, 13; and Crew, 4 – in the spotlight.
He admitted they got a little “dazed and confused” wondering if the kids should be
“And for sure we’ve gone through that cycle, where at the very beginning, we had a production company, and again, I’m not throwing them under the bus. I think it was a great strategy. And we didn’t even mind it. We were kind of naive and dumb, really, to be frank, enough to be like, let’s have the kids be involved.”
While promoting her new memoir, The Stories We Tell, Joanna added it seemed like the natural thing to do because at the time the couple really did bring their children to work.
“We really thought, ‘Oh people in Waco will know we design homes and build homes, maybe we’ll get more business.’ We thought about Waco, never beyond that,” Joanna confessed.
As their business evolved, their popularity grew, and their children got older, the Gaineses featured their children less and less.
“Where the older they’ve gotten, I’ve learned to just let them have their own identity outside of this,” Joanna said. “So unless they want to be a part of it, I don’t even ask them because I don’t want them to feel like, ‘Oh, you’re the kid from Fixer.’ I do not want that. Chip and I can get that all day long, that’s normal, we said yes to that.”
