Ina Garten Reveals Why She’s ‘Really Happy’ That She and Husband Jeffrey Never Had Children

Ina Garten has no regrets about her decision to not have children.

The Barefoot Contessa star, 78, opened up about her and husband Jeffrey Garten‘s decision to live a child-free life in a recent interview with The New York Times published on Saturday, August 29. Ina told the publication that she felt like if she and Jeffrey, 79, had decided to have kids, it would have made her career more “difficult.”

“I think Jeffrey and I would have had a different life together,” the celebrity chef explained. “I’ve never looked back on the decision and thought, I should have done it differently. I understand how my friends have wonderful families, and they really enjoy being parents, but it’s just not something I ever wanted to do. I’m really happy that I didn’t.”

Ina also said that there were times in her and Jeffrey’s life that having children would have made some of their other dreams hard to achieve.

“There were times when Jeffrey decided that he wanted to start a business in Japan, and so he moved to Japan,” she said. “I was in East Hampton, we went back and forth and we figured it out. I think that probably couldn’t have happened if we had kids, and I couldn’t have stayed long hours at the store, doing catering and running the store.”

This wasn’t the first time Ina has spoken about her and Jeffrey’s decision to not have children. Ina previously told Today in 2017 that she and her husband made the decision “very early.”

“We decided not to have children,” she said at the time. “I really appreciate that other people do, and we will always have friends that have children that we are close to, but it was a choice I made very early. I really felt, I feel, that I would have never been able to have the life I’ve had [with children].”