SALON

Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:40 PM UTC

The smoking toddler: Who’s to blame?

A nicotine-addicted 2-year-old sparks fury. But it isn't just the parents at fault -- it's Big Tobacco

By

Topics: YouTube,

The smoking toddler: Who's to blame?In an interview with UK's The Sun, this 2-year-old Indonesian boy was seen smoking a cigarette with abandon.

It’s not such a small world after all. One only need check out the video that surfaced this week of an overweight Indonesian toddler dragging on a cigarette with all the practiced aplomb of Don Draper — and the horrified reactions it spawned across the world — to get a textbook lesson in cultural divides.

A reporter visiting the 2-year-old boy’s Sumatran village shot the footage, which was posted on the UK Sun’s website Saturday. But it was a follow-up on Wednesday, with the accompanying revelations that his father gave the child his first smoke when he was just 18 months old and his mother’s lamentations that the boy, who allegedly smokes up to 40 cigarettes a day, is “totally addicted. If he doesn’t get cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and batters his head against the wall,” that sent the clip into the viral zone.

Anyone familiar with British tabloids knows that nicotine-addicted tykes are their idea of a headline jackpot. The accompanying caption, “Tar baby,” was certainly an inspired touch of “us vs. them” provocation. Isn’t this wrong how they treat kids over there? Don’t you feel angry, readers? Fish, meet barrel. And sure enough, extending far beyond the comments section of the Sun, the Internet quickly lit up like a gaggle of Indonesian toddlers over the “disgusting” and “disgraceful” situation.

Those of us used to moving in social circles where giving your kid access to a doughnut or a Bratz doll will get you a rep as a child abuser, where anti-smoking campaigns are enthusiastic to the point of stomach-turning, were naturally boggled by the clip. But that disturbing video doesn’t just represent an easy opportunity for parents with high-speed Internet access to feel smug about their own child-rearing practices.

It’s a snapshot of a country where over 60 percent of all adult men smoke, a place where, unsurprisingly, the tobacco industry rides roughshod over the public health interest. While smoking rates continue to dip in places like the U.S., they’ve actually risen in Indonesia. The World Bank estimates that one-third of the world’s adult population smokes — an astonishing 80 percent of whom live in “low- and middle-income countries.” And that number just keeps growing– in places like Indonesia, where a smoking household will spend about 11 percent of its income on cigarettes and the rate of smokers between the tender age of 5 and 9 has dramatically risen since 2001. A place where there are no bans on public smoking, no age limit on who can buy cigarettes, and a deep-pocketed, largely unregulated tobacco industry that can advertise on television  and sponsor huge entertainment events seemingly at will. A part of the world where smoking is the leading cause of premature death.

A child’s welfare is still first and foremost his parents’ responsibility. But before we get too comfortable in the knowledge that we’d never even expose our own babies to cigarettes, let alone hand them a pack, maybe we can redirect a little of that indignation toward a profitable industry that’s worked so hard to pour smoke down those little lungs. 

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 59 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Slave descendants seek equal rights from Cherokee Nation
59 points60 points | 3 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator who voted against federal funding for Hurricane Sandy victims: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
40 points41 points | comment
vote
"Slave descendants seek equal rights from Cherokee Nation": long, detailed narrative of legal and historical complications in red-white-black relations
23 points24 points | comment
vote
Obama opposes GOP bill on Keystone XL oil pipeline: The White House said Tuesday that the bill “seeks to circumvent longstanding and proven processes” by removing a requirement for a presidential permit. The legislation also says no new environmental studies are needed.
23 points24 points | 2 comments
vote
Who is "Company Doe"? Corporations accused of wrongdoing win battle to keep identities secret
9 points10 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations