Madeleine West on parenting and her new book Six Under Eight
ACTOR Madeleine West has turned author, spilling the beans in her first book about the chaos and joy of raising six kids with partner, top chef Shannon Bennett. Megan Miller spoke to her. EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT.
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Scroll down for an extract from West’s new book
IT was 2014 and Madeleine West, pregnant with twins and suffering from severe insomnia, started keeping a diary.
She’d write about the funny things her brood had said or done that day or muse on what motherhood had thrown her over the years: teething, tantrums, mastitis, uneaten lunch boxes returned from school.
With six kids — a rarity in today’s smaller families — she soon had a lot of material at hand and the writing bug had bitten hard.
“I love words,” the former Neighbours star says, “and pride myself on having a wide and varied vocabulary. Put me in a spelling bee and I think I’d rake it in.”
She says writing a novel was a step too far with such a busy household so she decided to stick with what she knew and submitted 1600 words of heartfelt and honest diary entries about the ups and downs of modern parenting to publisher Penguin.
They liked it and her book, Six Under Eight: When Parenting Becomes an Extreme Sport, was born.
When the Herald Sun spoke to West in 2013, the then-mum of four gave a firm “no” to more children.
She said at the time: “We were done two kids ago but destiny had other ideas. They’re all wonderful and a blessing, but four is quite enough.”
West, 38, reiterates that she and partner, Vue de Monde chef and MasterChef regular Shannon Bennett, never intended to have their own Brady Bunch, but reveals hormonal contraception failed her.
“They advertise (the Pill) as 99 per cent effective but there’s always that 1 per cent and that’s me. I am the 1 per cent,” she says.
West doesn’t include any photos of her “six under eight” in the book to protect their privacy and gives them alter egos in print — eldest daughter Phoenix, now 10, is Minnie (as in West’s mini me), son Hendrix is Buddy, and daughters Xascha and Xanthe are Princess and Tink.
The 15-month-old twin girls, Xahlia and Margaux, are Jelly Bean and Lolly Pop.
She says until the children are old enough to decide “to be in the spotlight or be an accountant or a garbologist” it’s her job as their mum “to keep them secure and respect their privacy.”
In the book, written in diary form and picking up just before the twins’ birth in November 2014, West navigates long-haul air travel with the kids and school holidays adjourned to the holiday house — things out of reach for many families — but there’s also highly relatable bumbling trips to the supermarket, the slew of kid’s birthday parties and serious incidents such as falls (see extract) and illness.
Surprisingly, the family didn’t have a nanny until the twins arrived, relying heavily before on dedicated grandparents and babysitters.
“The book’s about parenting, yes, but also life and modern society,” West explains.
“It’s hectic, it’s busy and we have so many commitments. We need to sit back, have a bit of a laugh, not take things too seriously and forgive ourselves for being human.
“We all make mistakes, it’s part of the human condition but if we learn from them, that’s being clever and the mark of a good parent.
“It’s about hope and joy and finding pleasure where you can get it. It’s about making this work. It won’t always be perfect but that’s OK.”
West also gives an insight into life with Bennett, whom she met at a Jamie Oliver dinner in 2000.
She reveals “The Chef” (his moniker in the book) to be a dedicated dad but also a fitness fanatic frequently absent from home due to TV commitments and at the helm of his restaurant empire.
West studied law before turning her hand to acting after getting her big break as nurse Dee Bliss on long-running soap Neighbours in 2000.
She’s also pursued a career in comedy over the years, dabbled in songwriting and done motivational speaking.
She was famously hit by a bus on a Sydney street in 2002, requiring plastic surgery for facial injuries and extensive rehabilitation.
She says she loves writing — describing her style as tongue in cheek, comedic and fast paced — and with Six Under Eight now on shelves, would like to move into fiction writing as well as eventually tackle the teen years as her children grow.
“That’s going to be truly terrifying in a house with five girls,” she says with a laugh.
But acting’s still a grand passion and West hopes to transition into what she calls a “golden phase”.
“I’m looking forward to moving on from the ingenue to playing the mature woman with a bit of life under her belt,” she says.
“There’s some rich fodder there. It’s wonderful to start to see women’s stories being told and not just the sexpots, but the women who’ve lived and have incredible stories and adventures. We need to see those stories on our screens so females of my generation are being employed.”
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* Six Under Eight (Penguin, RRP $35) is out now. Below is an extract from the book.
ROBO-MUM BECOMES DECIDEDLY HUMAN
Thursday, 13 November
It’s immunisation time for the twins. Great. Vaccinations of all my children are something I anticipate with the same quiet excitement as I would the extraction of an abscessed tooth: a necessary evil but one replete with much pain and tears — and that’s just me!
I generally have the kids inoculated at the immunisation clinic of the Royal Children’s Hospital.
The nurses are experts — this is what they do all day, and there are sights to see, things to do and naughty stuff to eat as we wait the required fifteen minutes on-site.
However, I’m feeling I’ve seen quite enough of hospitals this year, and following an experience we had with Minnie last year, the Royal Children’s now evokes some pretty painful memories.
Shall I elaborate?
Well, you have chosen to come this far with me, dear reader, so why not?
In the beginning of June last year, on an ordinary Sunday evening, Minnie somehow slipped over the balustrade of our second storey, falling close to 8 metres on to hardwood flooring.
We only have security footage that captures her mid-fall (footage The Chef tortured himself with but which I will never lay eyes on).
What followed was without a doubt the worst night of my life.
I heard the thump from the kitchen, a sickening sound I can recall with the same clarity I do the births of my children: a heavy, stomach-churning thud I’d rather forget but never will.
Thinking the kids were throwing toys from the balcony I stormed in from the kitchen in ‘Someone is gonna cop it’ mode, only to find a deeply winded Minnie sprawled on the floor, gasping and contorting.
At first I thought she had fallen from a height of just a few steps; the kids had taken to scaling the side of the staircase but always dropped off a few steps up.
I asked her what happened, still in Robo-Mum mode. She just shook her head and said she fell.
She couldn’t seem to get up, though, which raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
I called out to The Chef, who, in a state of fear and shock, immediately started to reprimand her for being so irresponsible and silly in front of her siblings.
Minnie, somehow, managed to shoot up on to her feet, all apologies, then just crumpled back to the floor like a house of cards.
It was then her eyes began to roll, not like a spoiled teen’s, but far back into her head. My instincts, meanwhile, were screaming.
Minnie had turned white, and grumbled of a sore arm and sore belly, between slipping into moments of near-catatonia, then asking us what had happened to her.
It was when she began speaking gibberish that we decided it was time to mobilise. I called the ambulance while The Chef stretched out alongside Minnie, buoying her up with a silly story.
We were still chiding ourselves for probably overreacting, even as I spelled out what had happened once the paramedics arrived, sirens screaming fit to challenge the cacophony reverberating in my own head.
They blanched visibly as they looked up the stairwell to the second floor, then swung into action, loading Minnie first on to a stretcher, then into the waiting vehicle.
Climbing in beside her, I left The Chef to oversee the three other munchkins, reassuring him we would return soon, even though inside I was quaking.
The Chef, always calm and level-headed in any crisis, smiled, kissed us both and soothed me, saying, ‘She’s fine, she’s fine.’
I think deep down we both knew that wasn’t the case. I nearly asked him to swap duties with me.
As we drove through the quiet, end-of-the-weekend streets, Minnie began slipping in and out of consciousness.
It was all I could do to keep her there with me as we approached our local emergency department.
Upon arrival, the nurse on duty ushered us directly to a cubicle.
Unlike my last late-night dash to an emergency department (Buddy managed to stuff an unpopped piece of popcorn into his ear), there was no waiting.
A doctor arrived shortly after and silently examined Minnie, gently probing her clenched little body and asking us both questions in the clipped, economic tone of the professional medic, necessarily devoid of emotion.
Suddenly, a battalion of white-coated and blue-smocked individuals filled our cubicle.
A neck brace and body traction was swiftly fitted, Minnie weakly protesting at every turn.
X-rays were ordered and results returned.
Her arm, now grotesquely swollen, was shattered at the elbow.
Suspected damage to her neck and legs could not be ruled out.
Most frighteningly, her elbow had actually shattered coming into contact with her abdomen as she landed, perforating her bowel, injuring her spleen and various other organs tucked away in
there.
The X-ray showed her stomach was filling with fluid as her damaged bowel had shut up shop. The fluid would be toxic for her system if allowed to build up, so there was no other option than to intubate her.
The process was harrowing: Minnie screamed, fighting against the tube being threaded through her nose and down her throat.
She gagged, vomited, pleaded with me to make them stop.
It was so hard to force my daughter to submit to pain, smiling through my own tears, telling her it was necessary and in her best interests.
Her eyes were huge pools of tortured recrimination as she finally allowed them to fit the tube and insert drips in both arms.
My baby girl, so brave; I would have done anything to take her place.
The doctor helming operation ‘Put Minnie back together’ finally paused for long enough to brief me, a sizeable sheaf of test results in his hand, a deep furrow in his brow.
‘As I told you earlier, we can’t really determine yet how much damage her neck and legs have suffered. Her arm needs to be set in a cast, and depending on how her bowel responds to the intubation, surgery may be necessary ...’ (Pause as I quietly fall apart). ‘We don’t have the facilities so we need to transfer her to the Royal Children’s.’
Once a clear plan of action had been put in place, my Calm Mum persona took over, 100 per cent smoke and mirrors.
I reassured Minnie as she was trolleyed into a waiting ambulance, taxied home to grab her some essentials, fill The Chef in, grab my own case and kiss my three sleeping babies, then onwards to the Royal Children’s Hospital.
That place is a well-oiled machine. Despite the ludicrous hour, the place was humming with confidence, competence and most importantly, compassion.
The medics on duty worked with an economy of motion that put me to shame, busy hands undertaking numerous tasks while they themselves exuded complete calm and a ready smile.
It was close to 2am when we were ushered downstairs for some fancy X-rays, yet the technician was as bubbly and personable as a first-class flight attendant.
Finally, some good news: her hips and legs looked okay.
Her neck was still a concern, however, so the brace remained in place.
By now, Minnie was beyond exhausted, and as staff worked around her, she lapsed into long periods of dozing with her eyes half open.
I naturally feared concussion but a nurse assured me that in these circumstances it was quite common. When groggily awake Minnie seemed more concerned by the inconvenience she had caused, apologising profusely for my having to be here with her, and concerned that the family would be worried about her.
At about 4am, in a moment of lucidity, she requested that I take a photo of her so everyone would know she was just fine. I still glance at that photo on occasion, tucked away in my phone’s photo album, and without fail it threatens to rip my heart straight out of my chest, for there she is, my tiny dancer, body in traction, arms laced with drips and swathed with bandages, tubing taped to her cheek, neck in a brace, straining her sleepy eyes to focus
on the camera, a weary smile playing about her lips.
I only pretended to send that photo to The Chef and the grandparents.
If it shook me to the core seeing it in context, it would have been too much for those family members anxiously awaiting news of her condition.
Finally, Minnie slept. She began to snore which, despite the circumstances, made me smile. I held her little hand, and wisely no-one suggested I go home, take a nap, grab a coffee, or any combination of the above.
It was just me and her. I wanted to gather her broken little body up in my arms and take away all the pain, but for now, just being there was the best I could do.
A week in, dear diary, and it seemed my beautiful daughter boasted regenerative powers of Lazarus-like proportions. So much so, she was sending me out in search of an ice-cream sundae for breakfast.
This is probably the one time in her life when if she commanded ‘Jump’, I’d ask, ‘How high?’.
The past few days had seen her cleared of serious neck or leg injury, and her intubation removed. I was finally given the all-clear to tenderly bathe her and wash the old vomit from her Rapunzel-like locks.
Sporting a pink and purple cast on her arm, she was so busy charming every medic in sight, there wasn’t time to complain about pain or discomfort.
It’s a lovely feeling when you not only love your child, naturally, but you see such reserves of strength and resilience in them, you also respect them.
All up, Minnie and I were guests of the Royal Children’s for two weeks.
We frequented the Starlight room like groupies would a back stage, and consumed McDonald’s like an American socio-economic cliche.
I witnessed displays of bravery from both parents and patients in those wards that would put to shame any acts of valour you might see on a battlefield. Some triumphed, some were lost.
The hardest part was hearing those little people cry out in pain during the night.
For some reason, those cries are so much louder, more insistent, and more heart-wrenching in the hours of darkness.
The most inspiring part, beyond the joy of seeing my daughter heal, was the attentiveness and positivity of the staff.
Theirs is a job I could not do for all the Tim Tams in Woolworths.
To bear witness to the pain and suffering of children is a task I cannot even begin to comprehend.
Yet I am so grateful there are brave souls out there willing to undertake it.
While such places exist, our children are in good hands.
Now, when children’s hospitals run their annual appeals, I’m the first to put my hand in my pocket.
When I do attend the hospital’s immunisation department with the twins, I am recognised by a nurse who immediately asks after Minnie.
I’m shocked and delighted after all this time. Despite some impressive juggling to get both babies jabbed, the whole process was reasonably painless.
Being back within those walls served to remind me how priceless your child’s health really is, and that we should never take it for granted.
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* See West discuss the book at Avenue Bookstore (127 Dundas Pl, Albert Park) on Tuesday, April 19 at 6.45pm for 7pm start. The event is free but bookings are essential to: rsvp@avenuebookstore.com.au
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