Now Kate Gosselin, whose image has been buffed a bit with her husband's post-separation shenanigans, tells Vanity Fair that the kids are suffering withdrawal from the spotlight.

"Actually, times eight, there was wailing and sobbing," Kate told the magazine. "They love our crew, they love the interaction, they love the events. There is nothing harmful about it."

And that may be true, except that we can't rely on Kate to be the one to see things differently.

Life has changed physically and materially for the Gosselins since opening their lives up to broadcasting. But in exchange, they've sold their rights to normalcy, a decision their kids had no part in, and the repercussions of which they are too young to understand.

"Sadly," says former Us Weekly editor Janice Min, "I think the only thing we can be sure of now is 10, 15 years down the road, the E! True Hollywood story: The Gosselin Kids."

Ditto for the three Heene sons whose celebrity-crazed father Richard coerced them into lying on nationwide TV. WTF was he thinking? In a word: dollars.

Now there's pressure from the public to rescue these kids from their own parents.

"The kids were practically blinking out hostage messages during the family's press conferences last week,'' commented one media observer. "After being used Thursday -- as the whole world watched, fearing Falcon was dead -- they were forced to endure even more media Friday."

Together, these two families may accomplish something child advocates have sought for years: tighter limitations on how children are exploited by TV. Let's hope some good comes out of their misspent youths.