Something is wrong with television these days. Whether it is our business or not, every intimate detail and every private moment of people’s lives appears on television at one point or another. The nation’s morbid obsession with all forms of voyeurism is a disease slowly devouring our moral fiber. As the misfortune of others becomes entertainment, people slowly lose their grasp on reality and fantasy. The things seen on television happen on television – they do not happen to real people in the real world.

Unfortunately, there were people who curiously watched Madelyne Toogood pummel her child in the parking lot. Certainly, there is something wrong with society when child abuse is a mere curiosity to be enjoyed on television.

Adam Jones’s recent Viewpoint (“Exhibitionist Media Sinks to Disturbing Lows,” Sept. 27, 2002, The Hoya, p.3) presents a different reaction – repulsion. However, the repulsion he experiences has nothing to do with child abuse, merely the fact that the media rolled the surveillance footage again and again. Jones, tired of the exhibitionism and numb to reality, glossed over the magnitude of what happened. Is it disturbing that a child is being beaten on TV? Yes. Is it disturbing that people can no longer tell the difference between a car chase, a bear walking into a tent for food and a 4-year-old girl being smacked by her mother? No. That is horrific.

What does Jones tell us about child abuse? Beating children? Just an example of “humans who were caught in the act of being human,” Jones assures us. Come on, we all get drunk and do stupid stuff. She was only in the parking lot beating her child for 25 seconds. Hey, nothing that lasts for less than a minute can be important, right? Even if that were true, does anyone believe that a women brazen enough to beat her child in Kohl’s parking lot treats her like porcelain at home? Toogood was angry because Kohl’s would only let her exchange her merchandise for other merchandise, not cash. This caused her to have a bad enough day that she saw fit to punch a 4-year-old girl in the parking lot. I hate to imagine what happens when the little girl spills her grape juice on the carpet. Nobody worries about surveillance cameras or other shoppers in the kitchen.

Jones asked, “When does public ridicule help anyone?” How about when it saves a child from abuse? Maybe, just maybe, that helps the child. He says it does not take “a village to raise a child.” I would rather be raised by the village – not by my parents’ fists.

And it is worse. These children are not being attacked by animals. They are not being pursued by the police on “Cops” because they ran a stop light and through a bag of weed out the window. They are not being molested by a perverted priest. These children are not being abducted by a warped stranger. These children are not victims of animals, their own decisions or serial killers – they are victims of mommy and daddy.

My mother works in a children’s home that treats children who have been abused by their parents. I have listened for years as she describes the effects this abuse has. These children are scared of the world. They cannot trust people. They cannot develop healthy relationships. They are manic-depressive. Suicidal. Like victims of molestation, kidnapping and rape, they are permanently scarred.

But I have talked to them. Like Toogood’s daughter, they seem well-adjusted. They have normal conversations. They laugh at my jokes. I laugh at theirs. They do not have scars on their faces from the beating. Generally, they do not bring up the beatings in conversation. They do not cry in public, or try to kill themselves when you are standing there. It is a heartless statement of grossest ignorance to suggest, as Jones does, that their abuse is inconsequential, that it “makes one wonder how they got that way.”

Three children a day die from abuse. Every year, 2.8 million instances of child abuse are reported. These abused children are dramatically more likely to abuse their children. Child abuse is snowballing, and a permissive attitude is only going to make things worse.

Do I think Madelyne Toogood belongs on TV? No. I think she belongs in prison, as far as possible from her beautiful, well-adjusted, bright young daughter.

Josh Zumbrun is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service and Assistant Viewpoint Editor of The Hoya.