Couple does a few loads of dirty laundry on FOX

GOSHENImagine giving the entire country a glimpse of what happens inside your home. Imagine letting everyone watch your children misbehave and disrespect their parents. Imagine letting them see you and your spouse argue and call each other names. Imagine living in a small town, and giving everyone the opportunity to form an opinion of your marriage and parenting skills. Imagine doing this in the Town of Goshen. Last month, Goshen's Chris and Laura King did all those things. On April 18, the Kings and their five children appeared on Fox's reality television show, "Nanny 911." The following week they were the featured couple on a pilot spin-off, "Marriage 911." The premise of "Nanny 911" is to send a British nanny into the home of an American family to help sort out parenting problems and family issues. When Chris and Laura first watched the program on television, they were astonished to see children with the same behavior problems as a couple of their own children. At the end of the program, the show provided a telephone number for families to call if they were interested in being on the show. Laura said a friend of hers from Georgia called; the friend had written down the phone number and called Fox. A couple of days later, Fox called her house. After a preliminary telephone interview, the King family was invited to New York City for more interviews. They were videotaped and photographed. On their drive back home, a producer called them on their cell phone: "We have to come to your house." Thousands of families contact the show, the Kings said, so they were very surprised to be selected. The Kings' contract with Fox prevents them from discussing behind-the-scenes subjects. But they did say that, although the show depicts a nanny spending one week with the family, with production equipment set-up and break-down, each show takes two weeks to put together. It appears to the audience as though it's just Nanny, the family, and a cameraman, but in reality a crew of about 50 people were around at all times, they said. The producers made a studio in the basement and "camped out" down there, said Chris. Someone from the show was always in the house, the cameras were always on. Cameras were placed everywhere except for the bathrooms. "There was no privacy because you were mic'd up all day," said Laura. "Nanny 911" introduced each member of the family. Chris, a chiropractor, was a self-described male chauvinist who minimizes his wife's role as a homemaker. Laura, also a chiropractor, was an overwhelmed stay-at-home mother and "sick and tired of everybody." Danielle, 7, was a tattletale, and Chris, 6, was a "destroyer" who brought chaos wherever he went. Courtney, 4, had a foul mouth and cursed at her family. Connor, 2, was dependent on a baby bottle and jealous of Caity, 1. Nanny Stella, a real nanny with 15 years of experience, observed the family and gave them a list of rules, such as "no hitting" and "no foul language." She encouraged Chris and Laura to be "strong authority figures" and to set boundaries for the children. The Kings said Nanny Stella's recommendations were her entirely her own, based on her training and experience. She initiated "time out" as a consequence of poor behavior, a strategy that hadn't worked for Laura before. She also started a reward system for the children called "The King Family Jewels," which wasn't shown on the program. Each child was given a small treasure chest, and when he completes a chore or behaves well, he could select a plastic "jewel" for his chest. Jewels are collected and traded for privileges. Nanny Stella also managed to get Connor to use a sippy cup and eradicated the "potty talk" by instructing the children to take a piece of toilet tissue and run upstairs to the bathroom whenever they felt the need to say vulgar words. "The novelty [of the tissue] wore off," said Laura. Eventually the kids didn't want to stop what they were doing to run up to the bathroom to curse. "Well, then, you can't say it," Laura told them. And it worked. Nanny took Chris and Laura aside, telling them the problems with the children stemmed from problems in the marriage. This came as no surprise to the Kings. Laura told The Chronicle she agreed with Nanny. "I always thought the kids were a lot of our stress," she said. "I still think that. I just think that life in general with five kids contributes to stress. It's kind of like a circle." Nanny also said it hurt the children when Chris and Laura bickered and demeaned one another in front of them. She said the children do not respect their parents because Chris and Laura do not respect each other. She recommended marriage counseling. Hence came "Marriage 911." The pilot episode of this spin-off show sent marriage and family therapist Jamie Greene to help the Kings work through their anger and break the cycle of verbal abuse. Chris and Laura's relationship began when they met in chiropractic school. Laura became pregnant shortly after they started dating, and by the time they finished school, they had two children together. Their five children came in six years. Just recently, the Kings purchased Laura's parents' home in Goshen. A good portion of "Marriage 911" dealt with Chris criticizing Laura's weight and devaluing her role as wife and mother. He called her "fat" and a "slob," and said she "porked out" after her pregnancies. The show portrayed Chris as an uninvolved, absentee husband and father who viewed himself as responsible solely for earning a living. Chris is at work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. When he's home, he said, he wants to wake up the kids and play with them, which undermines Laura's routine. The weekends are tough because everyone is vying for his attention, Laura said. Plus, he wants time for himself. Chris and Laura said they were happy to get Jamie's advice and worked hard to follow his rules, such as no blaming or complaining, no name-calling, and no fighting in front of the children. The Kings said much happened in 120 hours of filming that could not be included in the final cuts. Of "Marriage 911," Laura said, "I wish it were two or three hours." She said she and Jamie talked at length about her weight, about how a marriage is not an example of unconditional love, about the need to work at maintaining love in a marriage. Jamie and Chris also worked out some of Chris's issues about his relationship with his father. None of these scenes made it into the show's final cut. Chris and Laura didn't receive advance copies of the shows. They watched them on the nights they were aired, just like everyone else. People in the community have reacted to the shows, and to the Kings, in different ways since the shows aired. Chris said that after "Nanny 911," people were shocked. "People were like, ‘Whoa'," he said. Laura said many relatives, particularly her family, weren't happy about the show. They said things like, "Why would you want to do that?" Laura said she and Chris didn't make their decision on a lark, and that as the process began, it got very exciting. She thought, "Wow, we really got picked for this? Cool." During the filming, she had second thoughts at times, but said she would definitely do it again. Chris agrees. "I wouldn't change a thing," he said. Fox does not permit reporters to interview the children, but Chris said that at Danielle's school in Minisink, flyers advertising the show were everywhere. Although a surprising number of children watched it, nobody made any comments to Danielle, or to Chris Jr., who attends Scotchtown Avenue School in Goshen. Chris joked that Danielle's teacher wrote on her report card, "No nanny needed here!" But Chris had to do what he called "damage control" at his office. He said he has a lot of patients who think Dr. Chris is "the most loving, caring, nurturing guy." And then, to see him on the show, "it just didn't make sense in their heads and they were confused." But, he said, his patients came to the office anyway and said things like, "I don't care what you do in your home life. Fix me." Chris said he's noticed a distinct difference in the way women and men have reacted to the shows. Women were offended, particularly by his behavior, while the men said, "Thanks. I'd love to call my wife ‘fat' on TV." Men also commiserated with him that their wives were beautiful when they married but then, "They started eating, and eating, and wouldn't stop." Is Chris's behavior really as chauvinistic and rude as it appeared on the show? Laura laughed and said it has been a joke between them — he says it was exaggerated, and she says it's actually worse. Laura said some issues in the show, like the remarks about her weight, are not everyday occurrences, but they surfaced because of their nine years of history together. The cycle of verbal abuse can be hard to break and can even begin to seem normal, she said. "It's part of the expected argument routine," Chris said. Laura was surprised people were so upset by the show — more upset, it seemed, than even she was. "My representation on the show I think was real, because I meant it," she said. "There were many times — every weekend, I contemplated leaving [the marriage]. I was aggravated with it. I was sick of it. I was irritated with the kids, but I was more irritated with him." Chris's emotional absence was unbearable to her. She even told the counselor, in a comment cut from the show: "He's just a paycheck." The Kings said other factors, such as health problems, have contributed to the stress in their marriage. Caity almost died as an infant from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and Connor was hospitalized for weeks for complications from asthma. Laura suffered for over a year with Lyme disease. On the whole, the Kings see about a 75 percent improvement in their marriage and family life since their time spent with Nanny Stella and Jamie Greene. To reinforce the lessons they learned, Fox is treating the Kings to marriage counseling. Plus, the "Nanny 911" show gave the family a weeklong vacation at a Florida resort, and the "Marriage 911" show gave Chris and Laura a honeymoon in Tahiti. Beyond that, the Kings are unable to discuss financial compensation. According to Laura, the feedback the network has received has been very positive, and the ratings on the Kings' show were the highest of any "Nanny 911" episode. The "Marriage 911" ratings were good as well, but Fox hasn't yet decided if the "Marriage 911" pilot will be picked up for a season. Laura hopes it will because it will help people. She and Chris likened their experience to "marriage counseling boot camp." If nothing else, the show can show that life is not a fairy tale. Just as most people's lives have moments of joy and triumph, they also have their share of conflicts, challenges, and outright disasters. The latter — the messy and sometimes painful parts of life — are the makings of good television, especially when it's a true story with a reasonably but not miraculously happy ending. After all, even "Nanny" Poppins and the British Dr. Phil can't solve all problems in 60 minutes, with ample time for commercials.