Ina Garten describes how her husband supported her decision to be child free
Ina Garten announced last week that she’d written a memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, and that it would be coming out in October. Now this week Ina is the guest on the Wiser Than Me podcast hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus (and produced by Lemonada, who Duchess Meghan just partnered with). Is it me, or does this seem like reeeeally early promotion? Shouldn’t podcasts and interviews to hype the book be timed closer to the release? Or who am I to second guess a Contessa. In any event, Ina spent part of her conversation with Julia sharing how her husband Jeffrey, who she married in 1968 when she was 20, has always supported her decision to be child free:
Ina Garten never wanted children — and her husband Jeffrey Garten supported that decision.
During a new episode of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ podcast, Wiser Than Me from Lemonada Media, the Barefoot Contessa star spoke about their relationship. “I think Jeffrey would have been a great parent. He would have really loved having children,” she told the Seinfeld star. “But, he wanted me to be happy, and it was okay with him.”
As a working woman in the ‘70s, Ina’s choice to not have kids “wasn’t a struggle at all,” she said.
“I had no interest in having children. None. I just had a terrible childhood, and it was nothing I wanted to recreate,” she added.
While the Food Network star doesn’t regret her choice, she said that by seeing her friends with their children, “I understand what it could be.”
“But when I was 20, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it,” she told Louis-Dreyfus.
Ina and Jeffrey first met in 1963 when she was 15 visiting her brother at Dartmouth College, where Jeffrey was also studying. They married in 1968 in Connecticut. They’ve enjoyed countless adventures together over the years in places like Paris and Washington, D.C., to their home in East Hampton, New York, of course.
Ina told Louis-Dreyfus that they’re going on two unique trips this year: a journey to the arctic and another on a safari.
In her forthcoming memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens (out Oct. 1.), Ina opens up about her 55-year marriage to Jeffrey. During an interview with PEOPLE announcing the book, she shared how integral her long-time partner was in shaping the project.
“Jeffrey used to write letters to me when we first met, when I was in high school. And then through college. And then when he was in the military, he would write to me almost every day,” she told PEOPLE. “And I kept all those letters.”
Eeks, the mention of their meeting when she was in high school does not sound right to my Millennial ears. But my grandmother got married when she was 18 and she was forever crazy about my grandfather (who was six years older). Some people really do know. And while Ina says it “wasn’t a struggle” to choose to be child free in the 1970s, methinks she’s downplaying a bit. Remember, before she was inexplicably cutting bagels into thirds, Ina was writing nuclear energy budgets at the Ford and Carter White Houses. How many times did she have to explain to colleagues that yes, she really was happy not being a mother? This is why it’s so great for thriving women like Ina Garten, Patricia Clarkson, and Mary J. Blige to normalize the conversation on their jumbo cosmo-filled, sexy-ass, child free lives. There are many ways to bake a cake; many ways to life your life. It’s all a matter of choice.
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