Ina Garten Says She Has No Regrets About Not Having Children

Celebrity chef Ina Garten says she is at peace with her decision not to have children with her husband, Jeffrey Garten, saying it allowed them to build the life they wanted together.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, the 78-year-old chef said having children would likely have changed the couple’s marriage and made it harder for her to pursue her career.

“There were times when Jeffrey decided that he wanted to start a business in Japan, so he moved to Japan,” Garten said. At the time, she was living in East Hampton, and the couple traveled back and forth to maintain their relationship.

Garten said having children could have made that arrangement difficult. She also believes parenthood would have made it harder to work the long hours required to run her catering business and The Barefoot Contessa, the gourmet food store she purchased in Westhampton before becoming a bestselling cookbook author and Food Network star.

Garten and Jeffrey married in 1968. She has said she never regretted their decision not to have children.

“I’ve never looked back on the decision and thought, ‘I should have done it differently,’” she told The New York Times. “It’s just not something I ever wanted to do.”

In her 2024 memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, Garten also connected her decision to her unhappy childhood. She said that in her 20s, she questioned whether she wanted to raise children because she feared recreating the difficult home life she had experienced growing up.

Garten said Jeffrey supported her decision, adding that he wanted her to be happy and was comfortable with her choice.