Paul Petersen has spoken again regarding the show:
"Jon & Kate Plus 8" is not the same as "Meerkat Manor." Children are not the same as animals being filmed in their natural state. There are, or at least there should be, rules when children are employed [or participate in] the Entertainment Business. Make no mistake, after four years of their most private moments being broadcast to a nation of voyeurs, the eight children who make up the "+ 8" are 'performers' in every sense of the term. They need and deserve the protection of the Law. But what if there are no Laws? Children in the entertainment business, in case you didn't know, are exempt from Federal Child labor law, and have been since 1938. Pennsylvania has no published child labor laws for kids in entertainment. Ask yourself the following: If anyone in the Gosselin home is being paid, who owns the money? Are there limits to the number of hours a child may work per day, and anyplace they can't be filmed? In the end there is only one question worth asking. "What will become of these children?"