And so, she was punished. Seventeen thousand people signed a petition requesting that Leicester Social Services investigate why the children were left alone; did they want her to lose her remaining children? Did they, in the thrill of mystery, forget that someone else — and not she — had taken the child? No, it was never condolence. It was a public expiation of shared fears, and a judgement of the parents. People read about Madeleine McCann for a jolt of terror, and to feel comforted. Because the children we love are here, and she is not. Our children are not safer because we judge Kate and Gerry McCann. It just feels that way. [...]
If the suffering of little children interests people, I wish they would also read child poverty statistics. I wish that they would campaign, too, to reverse them, and pray for the return of all lost children. But that is too much to hope for. Reading about Madeleine McCann is easy; caring about children you have not been forced into imagined intimacy with by media cynicism and parental despair is something harder.
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