America’s most popular “visual birth control” website

Photo submitted by Mel, 9 April 2010.

Mother-of-two Julie Haas Brophy has become something of a national heroine in the US after finding a way to compensate parents whose children have destroyed their belongings. Her solution? To post the incriminating evidence of the destruction online, and let everybody laugh about it. Besides, the photos serve as a form of visual birth control for parents-to-be.

Julie, a stay-at-home mum from Irvington, New York State, came up with the idea somewhat accidentally when one of her sons spilt a quart of black paint onto an oriental rug at home. Infuriated, she took a photo of the mess and posted it on her Facebook page...resulting in a flood of commiserations.

Within a week, she had set up "Shit My Kids Ruined"; a photo-sharing website dedicated to that very title. Two months later, the website has had over five million page views and over one hundred contributions. Here are a few of them:

Submitted 20 May by "MyMuses": "Matilda at two developed a penchant for dunking phones. This happened not once, but 4 times! Lesson learned: Make sure that your insurance covers mobile phones".

Submitted 15 May by Heather: "My daughter ‘painted' the cat with 4 different colours of nail polish".

Submitted 9 April by Cindy: "Went to toss a load of laundry in the machine and came back to hear "Big trouble....this is BIG TROUBLE"... notice he was trying to clean up the evidence".

It gets worse...

Submitted 21 May by Chris: "Courtesy of my (then) two-year-old boy. To be fair he did say ‘Oh no!' straight after he did it".

Submitted 6 March by anonymous: "Holy moly".

Submitted 16 May by Jilly: "My kids are over-achievers. They can take out a toy train AND a microwave at the same time".

Submitted 12 April by Cyndi: "If my thoughts had vocalized I would have needed to use the stuffing for my mouth".

Submitted 24 March by George: "Wii + 5 year-old = OH NO!!  Noooooooo!!!"

To see more, go to Shit My Kids Ruined. Julie has also branched into the domain of difficult house keeping concerning pets... inevitably entitled "Shit My Pets Ruined".

“Laughter is a fabulous antidote to the frustrations kids can cause”

Kids ruin things in every household around the world. Laughter is a fabulous antidote to the frustrations kids can sometimes cause their parents. And I think people without children are enjoying the site because many of the images are funny and these people are happy not to have this particular crop of issues to contend with. People tell me they're enjoying the site for its strong ‘visual birth control'. I'm sure there are also plenty of people who do not enjoy the site, but I have heard very little from them...

I have two wonderful boys, ages two and four. The two worst messes they've made are featured on the website: My younger son spilled paint on my dining room rug in March (above) and my older son graffiti'd a couch last year at age three (below).

One cannot prevent all the mess and also live a normal life. It's a balance. Dangerous items should be locked away. Some people say to put things in a high shelf, but this will not prevent some kids from accessing them. My older son was a climber from the time he could walk.

Having kids has made me less uptight about house appearances by necessity. Between two boys and the dog, keeping it truly clean and mess-free for long is all but a lost cause."