Kids today. They don’t know they’re born. Just look at the tots on the inexplicably popular Jon & Kate Plus 8.

When we were younger, we’d earn our pocket money by getting up at 3am and delivering newspapers. Thanks to that, we lost four toes to frostbite and our spine now permanently tilts 35 degrees sideways. But the Jon & Kate Plus 8 kids have got it easy.

All they have to do is be the unwitting emotional pawns in their parents’ cruel and ongoing effort to commoditise their agonising divorce in a way that possibly contravenes child labour laws. The jammy bastards.

People, we don’t wish to alarm you, but reality television could be on its last legs. We know, we know – watching comically minor celebrities eat dried kangaroo anuses for a glimmer of recognition is a huge part of our lives too, but at the moment it really looks like its done for.

This week alone Susan Boyle has ended up in a clinic because her brain couldn’t stand the pressure of being called less talented than a street-dance group but more talented that a fat Cypriot kid running around with his top off. And now it turns out that Jon & Kate Plus 8 – the reality show that everyone is legally obliged to watch on the off-chance Jon might get drunk and end up sticking it in a stranger on camera – is being investigated for potential child labour violations. The Star reports:

Pennsylvania’s labour department has opened an investigation into whether the hit show Jon & Kate Plus 8 is complying with state child labour laws. The department received a complaint against the show and is “gathering information,” a spokesperson says. The investigation doesn’t necessarily mean the department believes the show did anything wrong.

Now you don’t need to be an expert on child labour to see why Jon & Kate Plus 8 might be an issue. The show has never been so popular, but that’s only because of reports that Jon Gosselin has become a prolific yet somewhat erratic pork swordsman, while Kate Gosselin is evil and controlling and determined to squeeze as much cash out of the TV show as she can before everything falls apart for good.

That can’t be particularly good for the Gosselin kids – now the entire world knows what a staggering pair of arseholes their parents are, and that’s only going to get worse as Jon & Kate Plus 8 plays out its unnecessarily long 40-episode run. Sure, the first episode might have been all smiles and birthday cake, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that by the end of the season there’ll be crying children, bitter silences, smashed crockery and actual physical violence. We’re talking EastEnders Christmas special levels of misery here. It’s going to be unbearable.

And that leaves the Gosselin kids in a horrible catch-22. It goes without saying that – child labour law violations or not – they’ll all need to spend the rest of their lives in therapy for their time on Jon & Kate Plus 8, but they’ll never be able to afford it unless they keep making churning out episodes. There’s no way out for them… or is there?

Come on, you know what we’re thinking here – TLC should gradually replace the Gosselin kids with ancient midget actors one by one. Nobody’s going to notice if it’s done stealthily enough, are they?

And to keep the kids in pocket money while they’re off the show? We don’t know, chimney sweeping or cleaning out blocked-up waste-disposal units with their little hands or something. We’re not experts.

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