Ina Garten says she didn’t want to have children because of the experience of her own childhood. In a BBC interview, the Barefoot Contessa star was asked if she knew she wouldn’t have been able to do what she wanted to do if she’d had kids. “I think it’s much harder,” Garten, 75, answered. “I don’t think that’s why I made the decision [not to have children.] I’m actually writing a memoir now and it’s—I’m kind of looking back at my childhood. It was nothing that I wanted to recreate.” The Food Network icon went on to say that she now realizes that a lot of her decisions in life have been based on her childhood, adding that it was “really the motivating factor” in her choice not to have her own kids. Garten has previously spoken about her mother discouraging her from cooking and enforcing dietary rules.