Bristol Child Abuse Case Defies Logic

The extreme nature of the child abuse case reported in Bristol, Va., this week – a 6-year-old girl allegedly bound for weeks and frightened with toy snakes and spiders as punishment for taking food – seems to defy logic.

This isn’t a case of spanking or privileges taken or lost TV time. It appears family members bound a hungry child and frightened her intentionally, or allowed the abuse to continue, unabated, for the crime of being hungry.

The most puzzling part of this case is that the adults – her aunt, uncle and grandmother were arrested Saturday – are each facing only one count each of child abuse and neglect. Bristol, Va., police have said they believe the aunt repeatedly tied up the girl and frightened her with plastic snakes and spiders. The grandmother was charged for allowing the girl to be tied up. And the uncle was charged, police said, for knowing about the behavior, but doing nothing to stop it.

Police, who were summoned by an anonymous call to the Children’s Advocacy Center in Bristol, are still investigating and we believe there is more to this case than the initial reports. Families don’t go this far off the rails over a child snatching a snack. But regardless of stress, financial need or other factors, this family appears to have gone deep into destroying a child’s trust, trying to break her will and filling her with who knows how many new fears.

Clearly, they all need intervention – by police and social services. Their actions were obviously intolerable and inexcusable.

Still, this is one more example of a underlying societal problem where adults, caregivers or other people in power hurt those they are supposed to nurture and care for.

As a society, we say we love our children. Yet how many times do our actions show the world otherwise?