No regrets. Food Network star Ina Garten explained on a new episode of the Katie Couric podcast airing Thursday, April 20, that she and her husband, Jeffrey, always planned on leading a child-free life. Hear what she said in the video above.
“We decided not to have children,” Garten, 69, told Couric, 60. “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.”
The Barefoot Contessa host and Jeffrey, 70, have been married for 48 years; they first met when Jeffrey was a student at Dartmouth College and Garten was just 16 years old. Asked why the couple opted not to have children, Garten responded, “I really felt, I feel, that I would have never been able to have the life I’ve had [with children].”
Garten currently hosts an Emmy-winning cooking show (Barefoot Contessa), has 10 cookbooks to her name and a very enviable house in the Hamptons.
Despite the potential stigma that Garten and her husband could have faced for deciding to live their lives without children, the celebrity chef insists that her friends and family have been accepting.
“I never felt that people [judged us],” she said. “I think the one thing that we miss [out on] is a lot of people’s friends are the parents of their kids’ friends. So we never had that connection with other people that I see … that network. But no, I never felt judged by it. Maybe people did, but I didn’t notice.”
The couple have also worked hard on their relationship over the years, focusing on their marriage as they continue to enjoy life together.
“The secret is that you just take care of each other and admire each other and support each other, and you get that back,” Garten said, adding, “If Jeffrey and I disagree on something, he always agrees with me!”
