Known for juggling her brood of six with military precision, Madeleine West has revealed her pedantic parenting style stems from suffering from OCD.
Speaking out in a new interview, the former Neighbours star reveals her high levels of anxiety have turned her into ‘the mother who cannot sleep if she hasn’t pressed a week’s worth of uniforms and planned a fortnight’s worth of evening meals’.
And while Madeleine’s new brand of hyper-organised parenting has gained quite the cult-like following, the author of Six Kids Under Eight: When Parenting Becomes An Extreme Sport reveals she is driven by fears that something catastrophic will happen if her home is not in perfect order.
‘As the brood has grown, so have my OCD parenting tendencies,’ admits the star. ‘I’m a great believer in the Butterfly Effect: one bed left unmade before breakfast could see nations fall by dinnertime.’
Describing herself as a woman who writes ‘a list of my lists’, Madeleine has also revealed her kids often wear tomorrow’s clothes to bed to save time in the morning, she uses her washing machine fives times a day and has all school lunches organised the night before.
*If you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms of anxiety, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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