Back when everyone was buzzing about TLC’s reality show “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” long before the dark side of the show began to emerge, before the messy divorce of the couple, before Kate was revealed as a castrating control freak and Jon showed himself to have the maturity of a 12-year-old, and long, long before Kate demonstrated that she may be the least watchable dancer ever to appear in televised dance show, child performer advocate Paul Petersen was sounding the alarm that the show violated child labor laws. Reality show producers sneak in through loop-holes in the laws regulating scripted shows, and Petersen, to  nasty derision from some quarters, kept making the point that what the Gosselins were doing with their eight children was against the law, harmful to them, and wrong.

Now that the show is off the air, Pennsylvania, where it was filmed, has finally gotten around to looking into Petersen’s allegations, and guess what? He was right all the time.

After hearings and an investigation, the State Department of Labor & Industry, in a ruling made public Wednesday, concluded that child-labor permits should have been obtained for children appearing on the TLC television show.  Naturally, they waited until the state had extracted plenty of publicity and tax revenue, until the producers and the Gosselins had made millions, and until the children’s family had been split by stresses related to the production.  And, also naturally ,the state will not take legal action against the producers or anyone else, as long as sufficient money is placed in trust for the children as the law requires, and everyone promises not to do it again, and to get proper work permits and obey the law the next time.

Petersen, on behalf of his advocacy group, A Minor Consideration, testified in the hearings, saying in his statement…

“Today there are still nineteen states, many of them competing for production dollars, which have not gotten around to passing meaningful child labor laws specific to entertainment.  Pennsylvania, thankfully, is not one of those States.  There are, in fact, laws on the books to protect children in the entertainment industry.  The question is, why in the case of the Gosselin Family have they not been enforced?

“…It’s just too easy to excuse the working reality of television production by believing in the term “Reality Show.”  These mislabeled productions are anything but reality.  There are writers, producers, publicists and paid production crews.  There are hand-crafted stories to tell and do-overs and 2nd takes….And always…always…there is big money on the table.  It is all too easy to forget about the special needs of the children involved in these entertainment products.

“…and I’ll remind everyone that this is nothing new.  The Dionne Quintuplets were exposed to this kind of public consumption seventy years ago.  The Loud Family was ripped apart by participating in the PBS production of “The American Family.”  Even under the best of circumstances the consequences of early fame can have devastating…lethal consequences.

“I am painfully aware that the use of juveniles in so-called reality shows is a genie that has long since escaped the bottle.  That fact should not prevent us from asking the hard questions or preparing ourselves to intervene when children are put up for sale by even the most well-meaning parent.”

None of the news reports mention Petersen, his organization, or his crucial leadership on this issue. In the sense that this makes it harder for him to exercise the influence he should in protecting juvenile entertainers, this is unfortunate and unfair, but as Paul would agree, it is still a secondary concern. The good news is that, slowly, the message is getting through. It is more important to get results than to get credit.

Still, Paul Petersen was right all along. Next time, it shouldn’t take years for law enforcement and state governments to do their jobs, and protect the children.