My wife and I were discussing this, and 2 things about this story really, really bother me:
That despite a history of Andrea Yates’ mental problems, the couple STILL went ahead and had a fifth child.
Here’s the quote from AP:
*"Yates said his wife had gone through postpartum depression following the birth of the couple’s fourth child.[emphasis added]
‘She attempted suicide [my emphasis] and they gave her medication. It took awhile, but she just snapped out of it,’ he [Russell Yates] said. ‘She was fine from that time until a few months after she had our fifth child.’ *
Hmmmm . . . don’t you think after that fourth pregnancy, after your wife tries to friggin’ KILL HERSELF, it’s time to tie some tubes??? Can you say “vasectomy”???
My wife used to be a reporter for 10 years, and she said in almost every case, when someone holds a press conference or media event immediately after the death of a family member, it’s a BIG sign that something does not look or smell kosher.
I’m not implying that Russell Yates killed his five children, and while I can’t quite put my finger on what it is . . .I smell a rat.
Unfortunately, this is all I have to go on, so my opinion is really limited by mere speculation.
But does anyone else get this feeling, or am I being paranoid??
I wouldn’t go so far as to say something was stinky, but this article from MSNBC may give you more insight into the family.
Regarding the “let’s stop having kids” option:
(emphasis mine)
It seems this woman had zero time to take care of her own needs. Sad.
if you will, year after year of the stresses of pregnancy, non-stop caring for infants, and home schooling the older children.If there is something wrong here, I think it is because her essential aloneness comes through. It seems to me, from the behaviour of the husband, that he enjoyed the title of fatherhood but took tiny responsibility other than earning a living. Certainly, he paid no attention to a very, very ill wife. One imagines that his attitude toward marriage was that of a century ago; meals served to his schedule, children clean, fed and schooled prior to his arrival at home. I do not mean to imply that he is not suffering now. But a little attention paid to his wife’s alarming condition and cry for help might have prevented this heartbreak. My hope is that the wife/mother is in a total break from reality and that she never recovers a link back to it. As a mother, I can not envision a greater hell than knowing that I killed my children.
I dunno, there’s something a little odd about the father. I’ve only seen him on TV like the rest of you, but does he look like a man that just lost five children to you?
I’ve seen a few parents that lost one kid, and they were never that casual.
This case reminds me eerily of fiction. Years ago, I read a book which (I believe) was called THe Women’s Room. There was a character in that book, I think Theresa, who was a neighbor of the main character. Theresa, a devout Catholic, kept having children year after year. I think that this character in the book snapped on her eighth child and drowned it. A preliminary search on AltaVista didn’t turn up the author for me. There was also a television movie made of the book.
I agree with Jrob,
. I think once she realizes what she did, they will have to do a suicide watch on her for the rest of her life.
So when they married, their idea was to “just have as many kids as come along”.
First point: This is not a sensible plan. This plan stopped being sensible when medical developments and hygenic practices brought about a situation in which almost all children live to grow up. If a sexually active couple does not use contraception, a kid is going to “come along” every one to three years until the mother hits menopause. Chances are that all of these children will live. A couple who “just has as many kids as come along” will, if they stick to this plan, wind up with, what? Ten children? Twelve? Fifteen? More?
Second point: I would hazard a guess that most couples who start out with this plan either abandon it or modify it. In most cases, by the time they have, say, three kids under six, they rethink their plan. Starting out with this plan is simply naive. But sticking to it to the extent of having a 5th child when #4 had triggered severe post-partum depression? That’s stupid. That’s irresponsible.
Third point: Social services are reported to have looked into the family situation when the mother was depressed after the birth of the 4th child, and to have decided that no intervention was needed, because the children were not being abused or neglected. (They were then being cared for by their father and grandparents, at the home of the grandparents.) So that’s all they look for? If there’s no abuse or neglect, all is assumed to be well? They saw no need to consider what might happen when the children returned home, and were left with a severly depressed primary caregiver?
4th point: What kind of ability to make sensible decisions does a person in the grip of severe depression have? How much ability does a serverely depressed person have to stick up for him/herself? Damn little, IMHO. I’d say that the decision to adhere to their plan and keep having babies was the husband’s. The wife simply lacked the will to resist him.
Well, I lurk here more than I post (I may have the highest months-registered-to-post-count ratio) but something here bothers me…
Is there now an acceptable mode of response when the woman one loves kills one’s children? Those people who lost kids - did their spouses kill the kids? Sorry, but I was raised Irish Catholic Repressed; I’ve lost some of my favorite people in the world, but you won’t see much public acknowledgement of my grief. I suppose you’d see something suspicious in my reaction to the death of loved ones, because I’m not acting in some prescribed manner.
And what exactly is the implication here? That the husband was somehow complicit in this tragedy? Lemur made a flip remark in this thread about how people’s reaction to this would be different if it was a depressed man who killed his kids. While I don’t entirely agree, there is some validity to the sentiment. If the husband was clinically depressed and working 3 jobs to support the family (or at home raising and schooling the kids), would y’all be so quick to condemn the wife for setting the table for this tradegy and letting it happen?
Sure can (have one, FYI). Can you say “tubal ligation”? Sure, it’s more involved than an in-office vasectomy, but she bears as much responsibility for her pregnancies as he does. Which brings us to…
First, what is so senseless or irresponsible about this, based solely on number of kids? My wife is one of seven, I have aunts who had 8 and 10. Not a deranged killer among the moms. While it may not be your cup of tea (and isn’t mine - see “vasectomy”), there is nothing inherently wrong or bad about large families -at least “locally” (not considering impacts on population growth and environment/resource use)
Perhaps, but again perhaps not. As far as we know, she wanted kid #5 more than he did. What is your opinion based on? Your refusal to believe that she may have wanted each child, that she could have acted irresponsibly with regards to her own mental health and the interests of her children? It sounds more like a desire to paint her as a victim, largely absolving her of responsibility, and transferring at least moral culpability to the husband.
You may not be implying that he killed his kids (which is kind of you, considering that he wasn’t home), but it seems you are implying some large portion of moral culpability. What did he do, whisper “kill the kids” to his wife while she slept? Hypnotize her? Do you honestly think he said to himself “goody, a few more days of this and she’s sure to kill 'em all, the little bastards”? He answered questions from the media, who were all over this story, and all over him for something “up close and personal”. So, the media hounds you, you try to placate them and therefor something’s fishy? Right up there with “the police are investigating him and he hired a DEFENSE lawyer - he must be guilty”.
This woman was undoubtably mentally ill. She should have received help. Does the husband bear some responsibility for a shitty situation? You bet. The husband likely should have assured that she get the help - and respite - she needed. Remember, though, she was, for a time at least, under a doctor’s care for her mental illness. The husband may have thought she was getting, or got, all the help she needed (having been in the medical field -RN - I’ve seen many patients - and families - transfer autonomy and responsibility to health care professionals regardless of the efficacy of care). Just how mentally ill the husband PERCEIVED his wife to be we’ll probably never know - but there is a general tone that he should have forseen this tragedy, or known just how bad off she was. She was depressed before - but there’s lots of depressed people caring, and caring well, for their kids. She tried to committ suicide before - there’s lots of people who tried to kill themselves who are caring, and caring well, for their kids. This guy just lost his kids to a senseless act, and in a very real sense lost his wife too. Yet he’s slowly being turned into…I don’t know exactly what…the person who’s REALLY responsible for what happened? It doesn’t quite sit well with me.
In the end, though she may not have been wholly responsible for her actions, she is indeed accountable for them.
Does anyone else feel that there’s more than a little bit of “trial by cnn” going on here?
Without in any way trying to justify what this woman did, I seriously question how she could have been left in a situation which was clearly non-optimum for both herself and her children for so long, and with so many people knowing about it and no-one acting.
There’s a huge danger in evaluating anyone’s response to a situation on the basis of a 45 second media bite. Lindy Chamberlain served years in prison for not behaving in a manner that the media and the public thought “appropriate”.
If my partner had just killed all of our children, and people were shoving TV cameras and microphones under my nose, I doubt very much that I’d be thinking clearly about how that footage (after editing) might appear on the evening news.
I assume that the US had the equivalent of our coronial inquests - I’d sure like to know an awful lot more than what’s being said in the populist media before forming an opinion on this particular case.
BTW MintyGreen or someone else with legal training - do sub judice rules not apply in the US?
Well Reprise, while I agree with the “Trial By Media” thing, there is no dispute that the woman methodically drowned her kids.
As I just said re: my previous post, I believe her husband was (and this is pure speculation) a control freak who “demanded” babies, and abused her at least mentally, if not physically for years, and probably “drove” her, in her mind to a psychotic break.
However, whatever nightmare she “might” have went through does NOT excuse her actions.
Yes, I know that sounds hypocritical, but I can’t make up my mind about this.
IANAL but I do know that the constitution forbids prior restraint of the press and others. The Press is much more able to discuss criminal cases than in Britain, Australia, Canada and most of Europe. Whether this works for a fairer system is a moot point- non-US restrictions using the sub judice rule have frequently been abused by the court systems to the detriment of defenders.
Undoubtedly the woman is mentally ill, no matter what the details were. But one would question the wisdom of having more children when she was so severely depressed before, whatever the reasons. The husband is probably questioning many things now, so many “what ifs” that no longer matter.
If she ever does regain her sanity, the death penalty might be the kindest thing to do for her. I would not want to live, had I done this to my children.
[hijack]Hazel, I did a search on Marge Peircy but that book did not seem to be among them (now this will drive me nutsier until I figure it out). Looks like she wrote lots of interesting stuff, though.
[/hijack]
And I think he was a purely virtuous man who struggled valiantly to convince his wife to leave the satanic cult that eventually came into their house, killed the children then drugged the woman and convinced her that she was the murderer. This was necessary once she threatened to go public about the cult’s responsibility for Kennedy’s assassination.
Come on, folks. There is very little information out there and everybody’s jumping to conclusions. This isn’t a debate, it’s a speculation/lynching party.
After watching the interview of the father on cnn.com I just couldn’t help but to think that he really didn’t seem all that upset. It may have been that he was still in shock, I don’t really know, but if this had happened to me I know for a fact I would not be able to talk about for a long time.
I can’t help but think the father is acting so strange because he is motivated by guilt.
Rightly or wrongly, I think he sees this as ultimately his fault for not taking care of his wife the way a husband should.
Maybe a little more involvement and less 1850’s style of living for the wife would have made a difference.
Any way you look at it, it’s fucked up all around.
But it didn’t happen to you. It happened to him. Not everyone reacts the same way in these situations. Its like when you’re watching a funny movie, some people laugh hysterically while others just smile. In this case, its possible that the father is more hurt than anyone. You can’t tell how someone is feeling in side by their outward disposition. Have you read “The Stranger” by Camus?
And I’d also like to mention that it has become quite fashionable in the media to blame any negative situation on the nearest adult white male. Everyone else is a victim.
Some one in one of these threads suggested that thankfully, there isn’t really a general consensus on the proper way to act when one discovers that one’s spouse has just killed all of your children. I agree with that. and, as far as press conference etc, this guy had just faced the most horrific hours anyone could imagine, and no doubt, there were tv cameras/newscrews smothering his house, calling etc, I’m not at all surprised that he’d attempt to control some of that by issuing a statement.
re:
there aren’t enough rolleyes smilies in the world for that particular hijack.
Since I’ve never heard of them, I’m guessing the answer is no. Sub judice just means “before the court,” according to my Black’s Law Dictionary. What am I missing here?
. . .I smell a rat.