About a month ago, the CBeebies ‘Bedtime Hour’ had a change in presenters. The Bedtime Hour is a wind-down time for young kids and it’s just about the only TV that Kayleigh watches, so it was a notable thing that Chris and Pui weren’t presenting any more, instead we had Cerrie and Alex. I can’t say I paid much attention myself, but Kayleigh was a big fan of Chris, in particular.1

Over the weekend, I happened to be watching with Kayleigh and I suddenly noticed that Cerrie is disabled – she only has one arm, the other is cut off just below the elbow (I had assumed she was an amputee, but in fact she was born without her right arm). I’ll admit that my first reaction was surprise that she was presenting children’s TV – mainly out of not recalling ever seeing a disabled person presenting kids TV before. It took no more than a moment’s thought to realise that there’s absolutely no reason, beyond my own irrational knee-jerk reaction, that a presenter shouldn’t have a disability – and more power to her, to be honest, for having the courage to pursue her career choice despite an obvious obstacle.

The simple fact is this: Kayleigh, who is only 3 year old after all, hadn’t mentioned Cerrie’s lack of a right hand, or called attention to her disability in any way, even once. My 3-year-old girl is perfectly happy to accept without comment that a person can have only one arm. In that way, she’s actually more mature than my immediate gut reaction. What’s more, her having an early exposure to the fact that some people have disabilities can only serve to make her a more rounded person as she grows up2. I’m happy that Cerrie’s disability doesn’t bother her, and I feel no need to call her attention to it or suggest it’s something unusual.

So I am absolutely appalled to read today that parents have been writing to the BBC to complain that Cerrie’s disability is ‘scaring children’. One parent wrote to say “I didn’t want to let my children watch the filler bits on the bedtime hour last night because I know it would have played on my eldest daughter’s mind and possibly caused sleep problems…” There have been 9 official complaints to the BBC about her. Is it just me, or is that utterly disgraceful?

You people, who think you’re helping your children by telling them that a disabled woman is scary and abnormal, are sickening. What’s worse, because of your bigoted attitude, you’ll educate your children to think, like you do, that disabled people are worthy of pity and not respect. Your children are looking to you to teach them how to react to the world, how to understand other people, how to be a human being, and you’re teaching them that?

And besides, how do you think your attitude would make Cerrie Burnell feel? Are you saying that she scares her own kids simply by being their Mother? Are you suggesting that her disability makes her an unsuitable parent? What are you people thinking? Her lack of an arm doesn’t frighten me, nor my daughter, anywhere near as much as your lack of intelligence, rationality, perspective or humanity.

In the Dr Seuss book (and the fantastic film) Horton Hears A Who!, Horton the elephant discovers an entire city (Whoville) full of people (the Whos) living on a tiny speck of dust. Facing a whole forest of animals who don’t believe him that there are people living on the speck, and that they need Horton’s help, he cries “a person’s a person, no matter how small!” It’s a touching and heart-warming moral to the fable, and these people would do well to learn from it.

You so-called parents need to wake up to the responsibility you have toward your children, and toward the world in general. Stop passing your prejudices down to your kids.

They’re already better than you are at understanding what makes a human being a person.

  1. If I’m honest, I preferred the old team – they were better singers. [↩]
  2. I have personal experience of this – my closest primary school friend was partially-sighted to the point of being nearly entirely blind, and I would be lying if I said that growing up around her hasn’t hugely affected my understand of and attitude towards blindness. [↩]