Yates lived by rigid schedule, according to husband
Posted on 03/01/2002 1:45:51 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Yates lived by rigid schedule, according to husband
Husband also testifies she was allowed 3 hours a week without her kids
03/01/2002
HOUSTON - Russell "Rusty" Yates told jurors Thursday about how his wife, Andrea, lived by a rigid schedule as housekeeper and teacher and was allowed three hours each week to do whatever she wanted, alone, without her children.
"Man's the breadwinner and the woman's the homemaker," Mr. Yates said Thursday during Mrs. Yates' capital murder trial. Mrs. Yates pleaded insanity after admitting that she drowned her five children in June.
While he talked proudly of the couple's decision to toe a higher ethical line based on biblical teachings and lessons gleaned from a conservative newsletter called "Perilous Times," Mr. Yates coincidentally painted a picture for jurors of a bleak life bereft of any outlet for Mrs. Yates besides her children.
AP "A scared animal" is how Debbie Holmes testified that her friend Andrea Yates behaved in the days before she killed her children. |
Mr. Yates, 37, told the jury that he and his wife agreed before their wedding in 1993 to a "traditional" marriage in which he would serve as sole breadwinner and she would be homemaker.
The pact included being a stay-at-home mother, primary caregiver and, eventually, home-school teacher. Mr. Yates said that he controlled the cash and that she stuck carefully to an allowance.
Therapist Earline Wilcott, who met with Mrs. Yates after her suicide attempts, testified that her client felt overwhelmed and trapped.
Ms. Wilcott said Mrs. Yates felt criticized for the way she ran the household. Ms. Wilcott said Mrs. Yates told her that her husband bought her a book on how to get organized.
When pressure from raising their children appeared to be getting to Mrs. Yates, she could always look forward to Thursdays. Mr. Yates testified that for three hours once each week from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Mrs. Yates could do whatever she wanted, alone, without the children.
The free time was to provide some relief for his wife, Mr. Yates said. "I guess that's what we decided," he said.
Mrs. Yates is a diagnosed schizophrenic predisposed to pitch-black depressions that followed the births of her last two children. Testimony has shown that the 37-year-old registered nurse with perfectionist tendencies and a solid Christian faith went along with the home management plan she and Mr. Yates hammered out before marriage.
During a second day of testimony, this time during questioning by Harris County prosecutor Joe Owmby, Mr. Yates, a NASA engineer, said he and Mrs. Yates agreed before marrying that she would give up her job at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at Houston.
"We thought it best that Andrea be home," Mr. Yates testified.
Prosecutors say Mrs. Yates was fully aware of what she was doing when she drowned Noah, 7; John, 5; Paul, 3; Luke, 2; and 6-month-old Mary in the family bathtub.
Mrs. Yates' trial, which began Feb. 18, is expected to go through next week. She faces life in prison or lethal injection if convicted.
During questioning, Mr. Yates said his wife was quiet and remarkably modest. After they were married, Mrs. Yates wouldn't undress in front of her husband. "That's a pretty personal question, but generally that's true. She's shy," he testified.
While Mr. Yates found time for interests such as biking to work, joining a gym and working in the garage, Mrs. Yates had the children and home-schooling to keep up with.
Their life also included some unusual experiments and choices.
Almost as soon as their first home was built, they rented it out, trading it for a 38-foot trailer to live a "simpler life."
"I think a lot of it was that Andrea was generally happy in the house, I probably wasn't as happy in the house," he said.
After being married 41/2 years, with three young children and another on the way, they sold the trailer for a $37,000 converted Greyhound bus.
"I didn't view it as a hardship," Mr. Yates said. "We like it better than a house."
After the 1999 birth of their fourth child, Luke, the close quarters appeared to get to her. She summoned her husband home one day. He found her sobbing and shaking in the back of the bus.
The next day, she took an overdose. Less than a month later, she held a knife to her throat.
Mr. Yates told jurors how he faithfully drove his wife to therapy after her two suicide attempts.
He also told jurors that his wife opted for natural childbirth.
Although he conceded that the newsletter he and his wife read advocated natural childbirth for a "humbling experience for a woman," Mr. Yates said it was his wife's idea to go without local anesthetic.
"It was her choice," he said. "Sometimes Andrea liked to take the hard road instead of an easy road."
Despite warnings from at least one psychiatrist who said having more children would bring Mrs. Yates a harsher version of the depression that sent her to try to kill herself, they had a fifth child on Nov. 30, 2000.
They knew that Haldol pulled her out of the depths in 1999, after the birth of Luke. When Mrs. Yates faltered again, particularly after her father died in March 2001, they asked for the drug again.
"I knew she was sick," Mr. Yates said. "She wouldn't have tried to commit suicide if she hadn't been sick."
Four days before she drowned her children, Mrs. Yates awoke screaming that she was trapped. As her husband comforted her, she told him about her nightmare. "Something about in her dream she was trapped in her bed," Mr. Yates said.
"A scared animal" is how Debbie Holmes later testified that Mrs. Yates behaved in the days before she killed her children. The women met about 16 years ago at M.D. Anderson.
Mrs. Holmes said Mrs. Yates spoke only three complete sentences to her in the four months before the children died. Her hair greasy and matted, her body reeking, Mrs. Yates was a walking zombie then, Mrs. Holmes said.
"I was appalled," said Mrs. Holmes. "She looked like a cancer patient." When she heard that the children were drowned, a teary Mrs. Holmes said she collapsed.
"I fell on the floor, and I just cried," Mrs. Holmes said. "I was screaming. It can't be my Andrea."
Well, FRITZ, did your mom send you off to someone else's care for twelve years of your life....or more?
I homeschool, but unlike Andrea Yates I have the freedom to go out whenever I want; I'm not stuck to some "3 hour" schedule. As it is, I adore being with my family; it was also easy to WANT to stay home since my husband always pitched in and helped with baths, and bedtime stories. (Hint: a little r&r for mom in the evening does wonders for a married couple's sex life :) )
No of course it doesn't. That was not the reason I asked. I just trying to point out that if you were not home schooled your mother did have time off while you and your siblings were in school. She did not have responsibility for you 24/7 after some of you became old enough to go to school.
Also I would think that most husbands would arrange for an ill wife to have more than her scheduled time off. I have been physically ill recently and in addition to the time I usually get to goof off my husband made sure he did more of the things that are usually my duties. Now that he is ill, I am taking over some of the things that he usually does.
You have to realize that Andrea represents the woman men love to hate. She's the "I told you so" for a lot of guys around here, and some women, too. They refuse to entertain the idea that she could be so mentally ill, and that no sane woman should have to live under the conditions she lived under, much less a sane woman. I have four kids. I homeschool. I'm adopting two more. I have nothing but good to say about the lifestyle Randy Yates wanted. Unfortunately, he took it way overboard.
I also recognize a controlling, "too" independent man when I see one. Randy Yates may have had many virtuous traits, and frankly, I don't doubt that he did, but his desire to follow a lifestyle that was not suited to his wife had disastrious consequences. He didn't make her kill those children, but, frankly, I really have to wonder if she would have killed if they would have stopped at three and gotten the PROPER help she needed.
Yeah, but let's get serious no. If people knew the life you chose for yourself, the above comments make sense. I definitely agree that multiple children, home A LOT, in modest quarters is NOT for you(remember the homeschool thread a while back--you revealed a lot). I happen to know plenty of CHRISTIAN, homeschooling mothers with even more children than Mrs. Yates who are doing quite well save for the normal downtimes we all face from time to time. Even given all the weird circumstances, this woman is a very sick fluke amongst homeschoolers, mother's with more than one child, or the more modest Christian types.
Ummm.. go to any parenting website and you can verify there are a ton, if not most women(on the net anyway) opting for this. They at least shoot for it as a goal. It's a perfectionism streak that I've seen run not only through Christian women, but the New agey types as well. I know it's hard to believe, but this is all the rage right now along with water birthing and even lotus birth, midwifery,herbal care, etc. This is not some strange thing to me that she was considering this seeing how many women are now. many even draw up elaborate birth plans and make thier dh's watch dogs to ensure they don't take medications in the climax of labor.
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