Let’s see if Kate Gosselin can spin this one to her advantage. She and her pushover husband are being investigated for possibly violating child labor laws. Earlier today Bonnie Fuller, who just happens to be US Weekly’s editor, posted a convincing editorial on this issue to the Huffington Post .

jonkate labor laws

Have Jon and Kate Gosselin invented a new form of 21st century child abuse? I’d say so. Come on — would you allow cameras to be following your kids every single move on 40 episodes a year of national TV?

There’s only 52 weeks in the calendar. That means these kids barely catch a break, i.e. a few days without camera crews camping inside their home.

t’s a real life “Truman Show” with eight voiceless victims instead of just one.

I’m not saying that children should never be on TV or in show business. There’s a long cultural history of showbiz kids dating back to vaudeville days through infamous child stars: Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Jay North of Dennis the Menace, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and all the other Mouseketeers, the Olsen twins, Jodi Foster, Sarah Jessica Parker, Brooke Shields, Danny Bonaduce and the Partridge Family members, the Brady Bunch, and now Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and on and on.

Yes, some of these young stars were terribly exploited Judy Garland-style and grew up to crash and burn. But others went on to perfectly successful adult lives and careers. Being young, talented and pushed into in the public spotlight is not necessarily a recipe for exploitative disaster.

But, kids on movie and professional TV sets are subject to child labor laws. Children in reality shows are NOT, a point made forcefully by the Gosselin 8’s Aunt Jodi and Uncle Kevin Krieder, Kate Gosselin’s brother and sister-in-law who’ve been busy blogging, and then blabbing, about how vile the Gosselins are, especially Kate, to celebrity newsweeklies and on CBS’s “Early Show.”