Rarely does something in the news get under my skin…

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… but in the past few days it has.

The story in a nutshell (here’s a link) is that CBeebies – a TV channel for young children here in the UK – has hired a physically disabled presenter.  Of course, that’s not the bit which has got under my skin – the bit which has riled me is that there is a campaign amongst parents of some children to have her removed from the shows because apparently she’s “scaring the children”.

The presenter herself has a four-year-old daughter who sees her Mum every day – and I’m sure she’s not “given nightmares” by the fact that her Mum only has one arm.

Without sounding too self-righteous, surely if children see someone who’s physically disabled on the TV, the parents are capable of telling them that “the lady only has one arm” or whatever without the need to shield them from it.  And then maybe the children will grow up to have slightly more sensible views on such things than the parents.

I don’t know why this story has riled me so much, but it really has…

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