In response to my column on the Andrea Yates murders , part of an e-mail:

Hi – good piece today. I have a story, the upshot of which is, give Mr. Yates hell! Do not withhold the heat of 1000 suns. … My wife has epilepsy. This is a minor issue – the biggest across-the-board impediment is that she can’t drive. (In light of recent fuel prices, this is standing up to be a slight benefit.) However, when she is feeling weak and vulnerable, the minor issue becomes major. This is especially true when children are involved. She is the best mother imaginable, and we are proud parents of two girls. Her weakest moments, as one might guess, have come just before and after birth, sometimes extending to months beyond birth. For that reason, I have felt obliged to take certain steps. First: From our standpoint (yours and mine) a seizure is about freezing and possibly falling. We have stairs. This scares me. If she were to freeze and fall with baby in hand, it would be very very bad. So, I have personally replicated environments upstairs and down, to make sure that if she doesn’t feel good, she doesn’t have to involve stairs. Changing tables are on both levels. A refrigerator of some sort is on both levels (back then). A working TV, a phone, blankets, pillow, toys – all the amenities of life for someone who is weak is on both levels. The result is that if she doesn’t want to involve stairs, she doesn’t need to. Second: Carpet or padded rugs, everywhere. This includes the bathroom, the kitchen (cheap rugs sometimes), any otherwise hardwood floor. If anyone falls, baby is safe. Third: I call. I call once in the morning and once in the afternoon (unless she calls me). No more than a few hours go by without some verbal contact between us. And I telecommute on the rare occasion it’s needed. Fourth: I help. I help by cleaning the house, or by running interference with baby for awhile, or by mixing CDs for her or baby or both, or doing something. Winters here can be very isolating and weakening, and her family does not live nearby. Fifth (maybe this should have been first): We restrict how many kids we have in the first place. Yeah we should be fruitful, blah blah blah. Balderdash. Enough people already ensure the species’ survival. It’s not on us. The fact is, too many kids would truly inundate her even if she didn’t have seizures. …