Sister Wives star Maddie Brown is sharing her list of things her children “will never be exposed to” at home after growing up in a polygamist household.
“I knew at 13 years old that I didn’t want the life I was living,” Maddie, 30, confessed via an Instagram post shared on Tuesday, July 14. “I couldn’t change my circumstances then, but I could decide, with full certainty, what I would and wouldn’t carry forward.”
Janelle Brown and ex-husband Kody Brown’s eldest daughter noted that she made her non-negotiable rules for her children “long before they were born” and she’s sticking to them.
For starters, Maddie vowed her and husband Caleb Brush’s kids would have “no instability where there should be stability.”
“No fear where there should be safety. No secrets where there should be honesty. No chaos disguised as normal,” Maddie wrote.
The TLC personality admitted, “It takes a lot of intention to not repeat patterns. It’s not natural. It’s something I had to learn, and something I have to keep choosing, especially on the hard days.”
Maddie, who had three additional mothers growing up in polygamy, noted that she’s doing her part to stop the experiences she didn’t like as a child from continuing.
“But it ends with me. That part was decided a long time ago, and I’ve never once looked back on it,” she concluded. “Who else out there is breaking patterns for their family?”
Maddie is one of dad Kody’s 18 children from four different wives. TLC fans were introduced to her unconventional family in 2010 when Sister Wives premiered.
At the time, Kody, 57, was married to Meri Brown, Janelle, 57, and Christine Brown, and was courting Robyn Brown, who later became his fourth wife.
Kody welcomed one child with Meri, 55, during their more than 30-year marriage. He shares six children with both Janelle and Christine, 54. (Janelle and Kody’s son Garrison died by suicide in March 2024 at the age of 25.)
Kody legally divorced first wife Meri in 2014 to legally wed Robyn, 47, and adopt her three children from a prior marriage. Kody and Robyn later welcomed two kids of their own, bringing his total to 18.
In November 2021, Christine announced her split from Kody after more than 20 years in a spiritual marriage. Janelle followed, confirming her separation from the patriarch in December 2022. Meri announced in January 2023 that she and Kody were no longer a couple.
As Kody’s elder children have gotten married, many of them have opted for monogamous relationships, including Maddie.
Maddie married Caleb, 39, in June 2016. The couple have since welcomed four children: son Axel and daughters Evie, Joey and Emilia.
“My childhood was chaotic in ways I’ve spent my entire adult life making sense of and choosing to build something completely different from,” Maddie revealed in June, reflecting on her upbringing.
She explained in an Instagram post at the time that after getting married young, welcoming her eldest child at 21 and moving across the country when she was 23, she “found something I didn’t grow up with” and that was “peace.”
“Not the absence of chaos but with the presence of it and the ability to choose calm anyway,” Maddie wrote.
She added that throughout her 10-year marriage, she has slowly figured out who she is as a person.
“I’m a halfway homesteader. A deeply intentional mom,” Maddie shared. “A woman who is still figuring out what peace looks like in practice and thinks that process is worth talking about out loud.”
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