Key insights from
In the Shadow of Eight
What you'll learn
Collin Gosselin is one of the sextuplets whose early childhood played out on TLC's Jon & Kate Plus 8. Born in 2004, he is now a finance student at Penn State and a contestant on Fox's Special Forces: World's Toughest Test. In In the Shadow of Eight, Gosselin tells the story that the cameras never showed: a boy who resisted performing for television, was isolated in a locked basement room, and spent nearly two years in a psychiatric facility before a crayon letter to his father brought him home. His mother, Kate Gosselin, has denied his allegations of abuse. Written with Allie Kingsley Baker, the book is less a celebrity tell-all than an argument about what happens to children when a family becomes a product, and about how one person can take back his own story.
Key insights
- 1 A family's on-screen happiness can be a carefully produced image that hides what happens after the cameras stop rolling.
- 2 When a child is part of the family business, refusing to perform can carry a heavy and lasting price.
- 3 Isolation is its own form of abuse, especially when a child is cut off from his family while living under the same roof.
- 4 Adults and agencies can notice the warning signs of abuse and still fail the child who needs them.
- 5 Once a child is labeled troubled or dangerous, the label can become a story that everyone around him learns to believe.
- 6 An institution meant to help a child can deepen his trauma when no one outside is watching on his behalf.
- 7 A single act of courage, even a letter written in crayon, can open a door that seemed permanently shut.
- 8 The past does not stay in the past when it lives on in public statements and official records.
- 9 Telling his own story is both how Gosselin heals and how he hopes to protect other children who grow up on camera.
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