It's been nearly 11 years since Andrea Yates killed her five children by drowning them in her family bathtub. I wrote this piece as a result of this very disturbing occasion. If threats continue as they have recently in the Republican Party on women's access to contraception, we could end up with other Mrs. Yates in the future. Please take time to read:
Dear Mrs. Yates,
I just received snapshots back of family members; my sisters, all four of them and my kids, all five of them. I glanced at close ups of each of them.
How I used to quarrel with my sisters, and wished I were the only one for Mom’s attention. Today I look at their pictures and tears well up in my eyes because they mean so much to me.
Then I look at those five ornery snotty-nosed kids of mine, now so grown up and sophisticated. Graduates of or current students at Stanford, Harvard, Brown Universities, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Tennessee and Sevier Middle School. A mother’s pride couldn’t overflow more.
They are all so beautiful, my sisters and my kids. I realize that God has blessed my family more than I deserve.
My gaze goes to the open newspaper on the couch beside me. The headline catches my eye. “Mother drowns her five children.”
My heart falls into my guts. I am overcome by extreme sorrow. There but by the grace of God and support from a few others at just the right time goes my mother, goes me.
I’m not here to preach on how good I was, or my mother. We instead were able to make it through those tough years of early motherhood very much like yours. Somehow my sisters and I, and my kids survived. I’m so sorry yours didn’t.
Like you, both my mother and I suffered from depression. Mom probably had it much worse than I did. She and Dad had as many children buried up on Pleasant Hill as they did around the table for dinner. The work she faced everyday with so few support systems around her was daunting. (Really she had scores of family nearby, but Mom wasn’t one to ask for help.)
Being the oldest daughter, I saw how depressed Mom was, how overworked she was, and I could do very little to help her. But she made it. My siblings and I made it. Not so lucky were the neighbor’s kids, whose mother and most of them were killed by a depressed unemployed father, who one night killed them all in their sleep before he fatally shot himself.
My mind skips forward 20-plus years to myself, now with children of my own. Two children were to be my limit. But they kept coming and coming. While my few friends rejoiced with their new pregnancies, I wallowed in depression. To be truthful, I never thought of killing my children, but I was sad too often. I felt that no one cared about me or wanted to help me. I did lose one child in a miscarriage, and guilt overwhelmed me, because I didn’t want another child.
Even today while I adore my now grown children, I lament that the memories of their depressed mother also linger with them. But humans are resilient creatures. Our children get their share of bumps and bruises both physically and mentally. Nevertheless, most make it and even learn from their parents’ shortcomings.
Being depressed was not my mother’s or my fault. And it wasn’t your fault either.
But that doesn’t mean what you did wasn’t wrong. I’m sure you are completely aware of that, and constantly wish you could correct that wrong.
Many of us failed you. We didn’t recognize the seriousness of your sickness. If you had broken your toe instead on the day you drowned your children, you probably would have received expert and prompt medical attention.
But you carried the awful burden of depression, which not only causes devastation within you, but also all those whom you loved so dearly.
Some people may want to see you punished further, perhaps forever.
None of us will have to do that, however. The loss of those wonderful beautiful children of yours is more punishment than even the harshest judge could impose.
I just want to tell you that mother-to-mother, you and your husband have my sympathy. I can just begin to understand how you felt on the fateful Wednesday morning. Five children under seven alone with a depressed mother is like a cigarette thrown into a parched forest.
This is a warning sign for all of us to be there for new mothers who are also overwhelmed even when we aren’t asked to be there.
I pray that God will be with you in the coming days and years. My regret is that you won’t be able to look at the pictures of your children as adults like I did today.
Blessings to you!