Flashback No. 4: Cara is jarred awake by blinding production lights while the crew laughs

All child actors have to work under bright production lights. But most child actors don't have to deal with those lights in their own homes, and even while they are trying to sleep.

By their own admission, Jon and Kate permitted TLC production crews to install permanent heavy duty studio lights throughout the house. Reportedly, TLC picked up the high utility bills for all these extra lights. Because of oddities like this, the children's home was not (and still isn't) a safe haven, a place of quiet and privacy, as most children's homes are, but instead was a fully functioning television set in which the children's own schedules, needs and wants were given little to no consideration and where there was no place to go home to that wasn't "on set."

In this clip, which happens to be the same episode in which Collin was forced to work while painfully constipated (and it may be that this equally exploitative moment with Cara has been overshadowed by what happened to Collin just a few hours later that day), Cara is rudely awakened by a flash of bright lights. The reason? The crew had flipped on the lights in the basement where she was asleep. She was sleeping in the basement because her room was being remodeled. Cara goes to Kate for hugs and comfort. Not only do the lights hurt her eyes, but Jen, a producer, and another crew member, who are taping this all, are seen laughing at her.

Just because happy upbeat music is playing doesn't mean it's funny when a child is in discomfort.