{"id":28936,"date":"2016-04-06T05:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T09:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=28936"},"modified":"2016-04-05T10:50:56","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T14:50:56","slug":"the-duggars-the-dionnes-and-child-exploitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/04\/the-duggars-the-dionnes-and-child-exploitation.html","title":{"rendered":"The Duggars, the Dionnes, and Child Exploitation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Child labor laws frequently come up in discussions of the Duggars. There are laws about how child actors are paid\u2014laws intended to prevent their parents from exploiting them\u2014but these laws do not apply to the children of reality TV shows. As I was thinking about this recently, the Dionne quintuplets came to mind, and I began to find\u00a0some interesting parallels.<\/p>\n

The Dionne quintuplets\u2014five identical baby girls\u2014were born in 1934, in Ontario.\u00a0The Great Depression affected more than just the U.S., and it was in that economic climate that the quintuplets became a bit of a phenomenon both in Canada and beyond. They brought people hope much the same way Shirley Temple did. At four months of age they were taken from their parents, ostensibly to prevent their exploitation, and made wards of the king\u00a0by order of the legislature.<\/p>\n

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The Canadian government preceded to turn the quintuplets into a tourist industry. The girls grew up in a glass house\u2014literally<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2026at present they live in a fully equipped, comfortable home, containing all modern conveniences.<\/p>\n

Their little estate is made up of about seven acres, and is surrounded by a heavy metal fence seven feet high and topped with barbed wire.<\/p>\n

The grounds within are prettily landscaped and contain many planted trees, a tiny garden, patches of lawn, and three buildings. \u00a0At one side of the children\u2019s house, or main building, is the observation playground\u2019s structure. \u00a0Here the general public may watch their play (through glass and a fine screen) from a protected [dark] corridor. By this means the observation periods are carried out with minimum noise for, and distraction of, the children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Dionne quintuplets were viewed by over three million people. Videos of their care were shown as newsreels, and they were involved in three Hollywood films. Their images were on postcards, and there were entire product lines that invoked the Dionne brand\u2014both lines of dolls and keepsakes, and unrelated products such as soaps, etc.<\/p>\n

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In 1943, when the girls were nine, they were returned to their parents. Sadly, their years at home with their parents and numerous siblings were not happy.\u00a0Their parents were resentful of the upset they had caused the family, and treated them harshly\u00a0as a result, and\u00a0their\u00a0father sexually abused them. All five\u00a0girls left home as soon as they turned eighteen.<\/p>\n

While the girls had netted the state outlandish sums\u2014they were a bigger tourist attraction than Niagra falls and brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a decade\u2014the trust fund set up for them contained only a small percentage of this money, and by the time the girls came of age little was left. The girls were not even aware that the money their parents had been spending\u00a0was technically theirs, and the girls were so sheltered that the were unprepared for the world upon adulthood, and even what money was left was\u00a0soon gone. In 1998, the three surviving sisters, by then elderly and living in poverty, were awarded $2.8 million<\/a> in compensation, and an apology by the government of Ontario.<\/p>\n

In 1997, when the McCaughey septuplets were born, the three remaining sisters wrote a letter<\/a> to the septuplets\u2019 parents\u2014a letter that was ultimately published in Time Magazine:<\/p>\n

Dear Bobbi and Kenny,<\/p>\n

If we emerge momentarily from the privacy we have sought all our adult lives, it is only to send a message to the McCaughey family. We three would like you to know we feel a natural affinity and tenderness for your children. We hope your children receive more respect than we did. Their fate should be no different from that of other children. Multiple births should not be confused with entertainment, nor should they be an opportunity to sell products.<\/p>\n

Our lives have been ruined by the exploitation we suffered at the hands of the government of Ontario, our place of birth. We were displayed as a curiosity three times a day for millions of tourists. To this day we receive letters from all over the world. To all those who have expressed their support in light of the abuse we have endured, we say thank you. And to those who would seek to exploit the growing fame of these children, we say beware.<\/p>\n

We sincerely hope a lesson will be learned from examining how our lives were forever altered by our childhood experience. If this letter changes the course of events for these newborns, then perhaps our lives will have served a higher purpose.<\/p>\n

Sincerely, Annette, C\u00e9cile and Yvonne Dionne<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point you may be wondering why I thought of the Dionne quintuplets in relation to the Duggars. The reason is simple\u2014like the Duggar children, the Dionne quintuplets were not considered actors per se, and fell into a loophole of sorts in which children can be exploited\u2014whether by the government or by their parents\u2014without receiving proper compensation for their efforts. Further, the Duggar children have in some sense also grown up in a glass house, followed around by cameras documenting their upbringing. And finally,\u00a0in each case it was the children\u2019s existence that brought the cameras in the first place.<\/p>\n

Will the Duggar children come to feel as exploited as the Dionne sisters ultimately did? I can\u2019t say. I would feel better, however, if\u00a0the Duggar\u00a0children were going to be awarded some portion of their parents sizable earnings.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Child labor laws frequently come up in discussions of the Duggars. There are laws about how child actors are paid—laws intended to prevent their parents from exploiting them—but these laws do not apply to the children of reality TV shows. As I was thinking about this recently, the Dionne quintuplets came to mind, and I began to find some interesting parallels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":28952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24,398],"class_list":["post-28936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-children","tag-duggars"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Duggars, the Dionnes, and Child Exploitation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Child labor laws frequently come up in discussions of the Duggars. 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