Suffer the little Children!

I am so heartily sick of two things at the moment - that blasted referendum and the television coverage of the Sophie Elliott murder. Both topics touch the raw nerves of motherhood and womanhood for me and have raised my ire over the dinner table each night.

For a start off I am going to vote YES during the postal ballot which runs from 31 July through 21 August 2009; even though it's the silliest (and clearly deliberately so) referendum statement I've ever had the misfortune to vote on.

When you have an intellectually and physically disabled child who cannot be reasoned with, who doesn't know the concept of "tomorrow" let alone "wait, Mum will be with you in a minute", no amount of hitting (and yes I use THAT word deliberately) will alter his behaviour. In our house we have to try other options, ones that do not involve the raising of a hand nor the use of a household appliance (unless you call his computer a household appliance but it's never broken over anyone's hand). If distraction and the diverting of a child's attention work for an intellectually disadvantaged child, why can't parents of typically developing children use the same ploys without having to resort to a 'loving smack'?

The removal of Section 59 merely gives our most vulnerable citizens the same protection from assault as you or me. It's just a no-brainer to me.

And talking of no-brainers...Is it possible that a jury will find Clayton Weatherston NOT guilty of murder? I hope not. I actually feel physically ill when both TV3 and TV1 give Clayton Weatherston another chance each night to humiliate and persecute his victim, Sophie Elliott. How must her family and most importantly her mother feel every single night her daughter is portrayed as a promiscuous young woman who provoked Weatherston so much that he had to stab her over 200 times. It's a race to the remote each night as The Cook and I try to switch channels each time Sophie Elliott is tried on tele for her 'forward' (sigh) behaviour. I do not understand why we (the public) need to try the victim each night at our dining tables. Why do the television stations feel compelled to let Weatherston have such a 'voice' - it isn't justice, it's lurid and sensational and totally unedifying let alone becoming to our jounalists. And this, just in. I hold no hope for Sophie now