Ina Garten Reveals Why Having Kids With Husband Jeffrey 'Would Have Been Very Difficult'

Ina Garten said the life she built would not have been possible if she and her husband, Jeffrey Garten, had raised children.

The celebrity chef, 78, reflected on the couple's decision to remain childfree in a new interview with The New York Times, saying she’s never once looked back on the choice with regret.

The Gartens have been married since 1968.

Ina explained that the life she and her husband have enjoyed together would have been difficult had they decided to have children.

“I think Jeffrey and I would have had a different life together,” she shared, pointing to the practical realities of their careers and marriage.

"I’m not saying it’s a better life or a worse life, but there were times when Jeffrey decided that he wanted to start a business in Japan, so he moved to Japan."

She remained in East Hampton, New York, and the two traveled back and forth to make it work.

"We figured it out," she continued. "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."

According to Ina, the choice was one she settled on early in life. She realized around the age of 25 that she simply didn’t want to have children, and has expressed gratitude that Jeffrey supported what she wanted. She married Jeffrey in 1968 after the two met when she was a teenager, and she has often described his willingness to back her ambitions as central to their long marriage.

She has been consistent about the decision across the years. In earlier interviews, she said she assumed when she married that she’d be a wife in a traditional household with children, but came to resist that expectation in her twenties. She has said the choice never felt like something she was judged for, and that she barely noticed if others did.

Rather than raise a family, Ina built one of the most successful careers in American food. She bought a specialty food store called the Barefoot Contessa in Westhampton Beach, New York, in 1978, having previously worked in Washington on federal budget policy, and grew it into a catering business before turning to publishing and television.

She has since written more than a dozen best-selling cookbooks and hosted the Food Network series Barefoot Contessa and Be My Guest With Ina Garten, along with a 2024 memoir.

Through it all, Ina has placed her marriage at the heart of her story. She has credited its longevity to mutual care, admiration, and support, saying that what a person puts into taking care of a partner comes back to them.

The couple, who split their time between the Hamptons and New York City, have made Jeffrey a recurring presence on her shows and in her books, where he often appears as the appreciative guest at her table.

Ina and Jeffrey have described their decades together as exactly the life they wanted.