#FreeBritney, Labor Laws, and How to Escape Abusive Parents

Britney Spears is a former child entertainer who has been rendered the legal equivalent of a child under her father’s control. Although Spears is an adult, exploitation of child entertainers by their parents is commonplace. I should know. Before I was a homeless teenager, I was a child actor in the 90s with parents who circumvented child labor laws, the Coogan Act, and SAG-AFTRA union regulations. Like Spears’ conservatorship which grants her father control over her body, finances, and business, our antiquated laws do not adequately protect child performers and the children of social media influencer parents like the Stauffers.

As my mom and dad found, it is very easy for parents to take advantage of their working children if they reside in a state that does not have the Coogan Act, a law passed only in California, New Mexico, New York and Louisiana. The 1939 law was named after Jackie Coogan whose mother and stepfather refused to give him the money he had earned as an actor. Penniless, he took his mother to court because he had nothing after barely surviving a car accident that claimed the lives of his father and best friend. Shirley Temple’s career began 7 years before the law was passed, and as a result she received only a fraction of the…