Say what you like about Katie Price (the former glamour model more commonly known as Jordan), the woman has been under heavy fire for the past couple of weeks. I can’t say I’ve ever been much of a fan of hers, but I can’t escape the headlines about her recently, and every time I read them I feel another pang of sympathy for her. The nation’s press have misreported and twisted her actions to make her seem like a demon, the Mother Inferior, the ‘worst kind of woman’.

The first articles I picked up on were from the ever-neutral paragons of intelligent journalism, the Daily Mail and the Sun. They were titled, respectively, “‘Daddy, why is Mummy in bed with another man?’ Jordan’s four-year-old son asks Peter Andre” and “Jordan is disgusting“. The first parts of both articles mention that Katie Price allowed her four-year-old son to see her in bed with her new partner, Alex Reid:

The Mail: Peter Andre has branded estranged wife Katie Price ‘disgusting’ for allegedly letting their four-year-old son see her in bed with her new lover. The 36-year-old singer claimed the glamour model dealt him ‘the lowest blow ever’ when Junior asked why his Mummy was in bed with another man.

The Sun: Shocked Peter Andre last night accused Jordan of dealing him “the lowest blow ever” when she let their four-year-old son see her in bed with her new lover.
Singer Pete, 36, branded his ex “disgusting” as he told how Junior asked him why Mummy was in bed with another man.

Now on the surface this sounds pretty sordid – the wording of the headlines and the opening paragraphs lead the reader to believe that Katie Price has been openly having sex in front of her four-year-old child. Dig a little deeper, however, and the reality is about as far from sordid as it gets.

The reality is that Price’s son saw a man who was not his father, occupying the same bed as his mother. Now it could just be me, but I’m failing to see what’s so immoral or disgusting about that. Hell, perhaps my family ought to call child services on me; my son has been coming into the room I share with my partner (who of course is not his father) every morning for the past nine months!

Andre has been quoted as saying “I heard Junior had been asking why Mummy was in bed with another man. I didn’t believe it. I just thought it was kids saying things. But Junior has said it to me since. It’s something a four-year-old should not be saying. I can’t even bring myself to say the other name, but Junior just said, ‘Why is he in bed with Mummy? What is he doing in Mummy’s bed?’ That’s the most disgraceful thing I have ever heard. Ever.“

Pete, dearie, if this is the most disgraceful thing you’ve ever heard – that your ex-wife has a new partner and has the temerity to sleep in the same bed with him, or even that your son saw him in that bed – then you have lived a very, very sheltered life. That’s not disgraceful, that’s life.

Disgraceful is millions of babies, children and adults dying every year as a result of malnutrition and poor water supplies. Disgraceful is two women per week dying at the hands of their domestic partner. Disgraceful is war, death and destruction. Katie Price being in a new relationship is not disgraceful, and I envy you that you live in the world where that is “the most disgraceful thing [you] have ever heard.”

My friend and I were discussing Price’s vilification yesterday. When she went on holiday recently, the papers were full of condemnation that she had gone on holiday with her new partner and that Peter Andre was “left in charge of Jordan’s kiddies as she jetted off for a wild week with Reid“. The papers were full of stuff about how she was ‘cavorting topless’ (in a swimming pool) and generally having fun, and what a horrible person this made her. This wound me up beyond belief.

Firstly, what’s this about being “left in charge of [her] kiddies”? They’re not just her kids, they’re their kids. And surely if they’re his children too, he has just as much responsibility for looking after them as she does? I know that when my partner and I were long distance and I was visiting him, my son’s father was happy to have our son for a week or two, because he genuinely values spending as much time as he can with our son.

Secondly, isn’t she entitled to go on holiday, and sunbathe topless, and do what many other adults do when they go on holiday? I must have missed the memo that said that now I’m a parent, I’m not allowed to have fun any more.

If Price was the man and Andre was the woman, would there be such outrage? Let’s look at this for a moment, because it’s important and telling. “Peter Andre goes on holiday and gets drunk while Katie Price looks after the children.” Not exactly front-page news, even if they were still together. Because of course, it’s the default that women stay home looking after the children and men go out and have fun.

And then the icing on the cake this morning, in a text message from the same friend: “Headline of the Sun: “Jordan filmed romping in front of Pete’s kids“. It shows her giving her new man a quick kiss. Hardly romping, but hang on… when she went on holiday she dumped HER kids on him… now they’re HIS kids… I wish they’d make up their minds!” Wish they’d make up their minds indeed. It seems Price and Andre’s children are Price’s when it suits the papers to rag on Price, and Andre’s when it suits the papers to rag on Price.

Katie Price may not be a saint, but women do not exist to be saints, just human beings like everybody else. Katie Price, like all mothers, has every right to enter into a new relationship when her old one ends, she has every right to go on holiday and expect that her children’s father will take responsibility for their children while she’s away, she has every right to sunbathe topless at the pool (if, of course, the pool itself allows this) and she has every right to kiss her partner in front of her children. If a man did any of these things, he wouldn’t be condemned, because that’s just normal, he’s a man as well as a father. A mother, on the other hand, has an obligation to just be a mother, to sacrifice every other aspect of her being and to never be independent or to have fun.

Like I said, I’ve never been a fan of Price. I’ve never read her books and I don’t read gossip magazines, so for the most part she flies fairly low on my radar. But having had these articles brought to my attention, and actually reading them and looking between the lines for the truth in these toilet-paper red-tops, I’ve come to the conclusion that Katie Price is the same as many mothers in her position (but lucky enough not to have it plastered all over the news). She can either be an angelic Virgin Mary, or she is a whore. She can’t simply be allowed to be human as a man in her position would be. I feel for her, and am ashamed that so many of my fellow Brits see fit to judge her based purely on what they read in the tabloids, regardless of how we all know the tabloids will twist words and outright lie to get a good story, rather than actually thinking about things for a change.

This post is cross-posted from my blog Shut Up, Sit Down – apologies if you get it twice in your reader.