Sh*t My Kids Ruined Read online

  A Villard Books Trade Paperback Original

  Copyright © 2010 by Julie Haas Brophy

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Villard Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  VILLARD and “V” CIRCLED Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Brophy, Julie Haas.

  Sh*t my kids ruined : an A–Z celebration of kid-destruction / Julie Haas Brophy.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-52718-9

  1. Parenting—Humor. I. Title.

  PN6231.P2B76 2010

  818’.602—dc22 2010037948

  www.villard.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter A

  Chapter B

  Chapter C

  Chapter D

  Chapter E

  Chapter F

  Chapter G

  Chapter H

  Chapter I

  Chapter J

  Chapter K

  Chapter L

  Chapter M

  Chapter N

  Chapter O

  Chapter P

  Chapter Q

  Chapter R

  Chapter S

  Chapter T

  Chapter U

  Chapter V

  Chapter W

  Chapter X

  Chapter Y

  Chapter Z

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  This book contains some sensitive, shocking, and funny personal images. A few are downright unpleasant. Gross, really! You are hereby advised not to view while eating, driving, operating heavy machinery, or enjoying sex. Though touted by some as a powerful visual birth control, its prophylactic effectiveness is not guaranteed.

  Sh*t My Kids Ruined (SMKR) was born the morning of March 3, 2010. I was somewhat harried, doing too much at once, and my boys were going to be late for preschool. They were dressed and finishing their breakfasts, and in an attempt at efficiency, I set up materials for a project I planned to complete during the two hours they’d be at school. I make glass mosaic housewares in my few spare hours each week, and was preparing for upcoming local events.

  I made two mistakes that morning: One, I placed my brushes, trays, frames, and covered paint can atop a newspaper and tarp on my rug. Not bright. Two, I turned my back for the seconds it took to place our dishes in the sink and grab my keys. I spun back around to a loud gasp that spilled from one of their mouths and that uh-oh facial expression saved only for spectacular disasters. My then two-year-old had snatched the paint can and emptied its contents in one fell swoop, and I was now looking at a quart of glossy black paint spreading over my rug.

  Cue momentary breakdown. I don’t know if the “nooooooooo” of disbelief was said aloud or in my head. For the next minute or two before getting ahold of myself, I was a whirlwind of misplaced yelling and irrational tears that can accompany exhaustion and frustration. There may even have been a few seconds of baboonlike jumping up and down. Maybe. I do remember the deep breaths and snapping a “You’re not gonna believe this shit” picture with my phone, then dropping the boys off at school.

  Though my son had technically carried out the spilling, the fault was clearly mine. After kicking myself repeatedly for having left the paint out to begin with, I uploaded the photo to Facebook. I was already in the habit of photographing and posting things that amused me, occasionally including the minutiae of my life. In the trapped isolation and discomfort I often felt as a new mom and reluctant suburbanite, Facebook served at times as an ideal outlet. I tended to post when procrastinating or feeling silly or bored, or in this case, seeking both comfort and laughs.

  Comments regarding the rug photo poured in—parents commiserated and chuckled, child-free friends guffawed and teased. With each new remark I smiled. I laughed! I wasn’t alone with my paint-blob misery; I was virtually supported (and ribbed mercilessly) by friends near and far. Even though the rug incident left me upset, these comments helped me turn around a crappy morning. And though I loved the rug—I’d bought it years earlier on eBay for not much money—it was already quite threadbare. My struggle was with my frustration and my sense of powerlessness, not with the loss of anything valuable.

  The same morning, I ran into a friend on my block who’d seen the picture. And in the sophisticated manner for which I’m known, I complained laughingly to her, “They ruin all of my shit!” With that phrase rattling around in my head, I returned home and searched for domain names. In minutes I’d purchased ShitMyKidsRuined.com, and after a key suggestion from my brother Brian, added the Pets equivalent later that morning. Not long afterward, Husband and Wife joined the family of Ruined websites. After all, when I said “they” ruin my stuff, I was including all four beloved crap-trashing males with whom I’m living (husband, boys, pug).

  Later that day, I used my phone to photograph everything I could recall one or both boys staining, breaking, ripping, or somehow affecting adversely. As you may imagine I didn’t have trouble finding many items in this category. For starters there was our off-white upstairs couch, our home’s only other victim of truly stunning destruction, this one at the hands of our older son, then three. The night before we were going on a trip, he’d snuck out of bed and into my handbag where he found a permanent marker, red nail polish, and zit cream. And with this thoroughly damaging trio he graffitied one side of the couch, which, incidentally, was made of canvas. Blank canvas.

  The next obvious candidates for my gallery of crapped-up possessions (most of which are still in use) included a decimated laptop, yogurt-stained lamp shade, warped cabinet door, broken toilet paper holder, backless remote control, torn window blinds, and just about every pop-up book that had the misfortune to pass through our home. I posted these images together in an album online.

  The next day my friend Sara, who loved the idea from the get-go, walked me through the basics of weblogging. She got me started on Tumblr (where SMKR spent its first four months), and she helped me understand things like Twitter and site analytics, which hitherto caused my eyes to glaze over. Sara also provided my first site photo that was not my own—a fabulous photo of her dog whose white fur had red marker streaks courtesy of her youngest son.

  Within the day, more friends as well as strangers began submitting pictures of their family’s kid-destruction. Anonymously revealing these private, often unpleasant, sometimes embarrassing moments proved therapeutic and fun, and word spread. Remarkable images representing depleted sleep, stretch-marked bellies, and devastated bank accounts joined the pictures of Sharpie-marked walls, abused electronics, mangled broken toys. No blame, no bitterness. Just comic relief.

  More positive response and enthusiasm led to a group of friends on Facebook each placing the SMKR link to their personal pages. I set up a fan page that quickly collected members who posted photos and comments with great frequency and fervor. Site hits doubled. Then tripled. Communities on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr grew exponentially by the day.

  All of a sudden, and best of all, moms and dads were writing to me daily saying how much they appreciated, loved, or related to the site. Parents wrote on the Facebook fan page, “I’ve found my people!!” I received all sorts of photo submissions, which were clever and hilarious, relatable and occasionally shocking. Fans created representations of destroyed libidos, kid-interrupted phone calls, a spoiled love for cooking. SMKR developed into a place where it was okay to bemoan and joke and laugh together about the child-bearing-related b
ody changes as well, which too often feel taboo to discuss openly.

  Then things got completely crazy. I was receiving requests for radio interviews from New York to Dublin to Sydney. Bloggers started writing for permission to post SMKR photos on their own sites and link to mine. Entertainment Weekly’s Pop Watch Blog wrote about it, followed by Jane Wells on her CNBC.com blog. In addition to being featured on numerous humor and parenting sites, SMKR was covered on a zany and disparate array of media outlets from The Huffington Post to Sports Illustrated online to Gizmodo to maltastar.com to roughfisher.com.

  The New York Times writer Susan Dominus wrote about the site in her column, Big City, and the intensity of interest in SMKR magnified again. That week saw nearly two million page views. Agents, editors, publishers, television producers, tech people, advertisers, web designers, and even a clothing manufacturer reached out to me. It was surreal. The next month the Wall Street Journal online ran a piece about the site. ABC’s Good Morning America did an anchor chat segment. And in late June, Time.com named Shit My Kids Ruined one of the best blogs of 2010, also featuring it in a video about five blogs Time writers read daily. Wait. What?!

  I lived half-convinced the crew from Candid Camera or Punk’d would jump out at any moment. How had this simple, moderately crass photo blog gotten to this position? I was in utter disbelief, despite how very real and serious some of it started to become. In late May, I signed with a literary agent. By mid-June, I’d submitted a book proposal. And in early July, I got the thrilling news I’d be writing this book!! Just one thing: It had to be completed by mid-August. Wait. What?!

  Because meanwhile, back on Earth, the transition was awkward. My life was in disarray and my house a pigsty (though I suppose pug-sty is more accurate). I’d started the site as a lark and never took seriously the possibility that it would have this sort of trajectory. My sudden inheritance of a behemoth new job, which would leave me without any family prep-time, was difficult on everyone. You can’t imagine the laundry and dishes, the unanswered emails and calls, and the piles of crap of all sorts that accumulated. Actually, many of you can, because you’re busy parents, too.

  It’s the same with SMKR. While some of the site’s fans love it purely for the laughs, many of you have shared that it’s also the camaraderie that keeps so many of you coming back. Well, that and the unusual view into the private sphere of other families’ lives and homes—the peek at the unedited, the messy, the ugly.

  SMKR photos don’t often depict our best moments. They’re not usually our proudest snapshots. Our children are sometimes presented in an unflattering way. In other shots our parenting doesn’t always come across as all that stellar, either. In these pictures we are vulnerable, exposed. We are real. And SMKR makes no assumptions about the lives of those whose pictures are contained within. I know very well from my own experience that snapshots of one’s worst family moments do not represent that family’s normal existence.

  When we’re guests in someone else’s house, we usually experience that space in a somewhat inauthentic, spiffed-up-for-company state. In private, however, that same home may be scattered with kid debris, piled shoes, mail, jackets, books, towels, dishes, laundry, newspapers, et cetera. When I am expecting guests, for example, I turn the stained or ripped sides of lampshades toward the wall. (Incidentally, I used to replace lampshades, which I finally realized is kinda futile.)

  The same phenomenon is true concerning many families’ photos. Usually, the ones to which we’re privy are the shiny ones—Christmas card pictures, framed mantel portraits, class photos, and albums of carefully selected images—showing everyone in their most flattering light.

  Well not in these photos, baby!

  SMKR, like child-rearing itself, oscillates from the funny to the disgusting to the heartwarming to the maddening, with stops at embarrassing, scary, and joyous. It shines a spotlight on some of the unsightly, gooey, and tougher aspects of parenting, and celebrates them. And if possible, learns from them. Think of it as a lost chapter of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. It embodies the out-of-control nature of parenting. SMKR comprises all the things either no one ever told you or you couldn’t possibly have understood until you lived it. Every. Single. Day.

  Ed Asner once said, “Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.” Amen, Mr. Asner! The seldom-uttered truth is that parenting, while easily the most extraordinary and worthwhile experience of my life, can be a drag or a battle, and a lonely one at that. Shit My Kids Ruined is my effort to come to grips with and laugh through parenting adversity.

  In terms of what kids have ruined, most obviously, there’s the physical—the mauled belongings, awful messes, painful injuries, destroyed electronics, poopsplosions, crashed cars. There’s also an emotional component of the personal changes—growing into a new level of responsible adulthood, deferring one’s own needs for another’s, and becoming accustomed to being depended upon, and accepting our altered bodies affected by the ravages of reproduction.

  On and off throughout parenthood thus far, I’ve battled two main difficulties, which happen to occur simultaneously. One is the sometimes painful, totally awkward mourning of my pre-baby self—my body, my freedom, my world as I’d known it for thirty plus years. The second is the totally awkward, sometimes painful metamorphosis into my new role and identity as mom of two and suburbanite.

  Parents have flocked to SMKR seeking comic relief, and like me, have found salvation through empathy and laughter. Swapping stories and uploading pictures is social, therapeutic, and fun, and it’s made SMKR both wonderfully sophomoric and a meaningful community. Sharing anecdotes is strongly encouraged, whether they’re submitted with or without a photo. One mom wrote, “We call our son Captain Destructo. He used to be Sergeant Destructo, but we’ve promoted him.” And like us and the li’l Sergeant’s parents, your culprits have names you’ve shared: “Not Me,” “I Didn’t,” “No One,” “I Don’t Know.” In our home, the sneakiest recurring perpetrator is named “No, He Did It.”

  To my delight, grandparents have become active members of the SMKR community, too. And let me tell you, while this group completely adores their grandkids, you’ve never read more gleeful sentiments about the ability to pass ’em right back to mom and dad at the end of a visit! One grandma wrote of her daughter’s destructiveness as a girl and admitted a tinge of enjoyment in watching her daughter struggle with toddlers of her own. She added, “Karma’s a bitch!”

  I’ve come to find out this material really amuses and horrifies the child-free set. This group’s enjoyment of SMKR has been an enormous surprise to me and I love it. It’s all a trade-off, right? I’m thrilled and grateful I have kids despite some of the downers captured in this book. And I know those without kids lead joyous, meaningful lives and enjoy your intact things! I’m a firm believer that kids are not for everyone, and to the extent that SMKR has affirmed your decision not to “breed” (as some in the child-free community call it), I’m genuinely pleased. And schadenfreude certainly has its place. I say laugh it up, people!

  SMKR is appreciated by many of you for its tone, which has a little bite, but is mostly goofy, supportive, bemused. Steve James Snyder wrote in his piece about SMKR on Time.com that the site “feels less like a compilation of scowls than smirks,” with which I agree. And this is very much by design. SMKR is a comic tribute to the madness of child rearing as well as a venting mechanism. I am only interested in the project if there’s an affectionate and nonjudgmental voice at its core.

  SMKR is not for criticism or told-you-so’s. As in the case of my ruined rug incident, it’s pretty clear from many of your photos that the parent or caregiver may well have screwed up, too. A man once commented on the site, “I’m going to start a sister site and name it ‘I Wasn’t Watching My Kids.com,’ ” which at first mortified me and I debated deleting it. But when I put my defensiveness aside, I was able to see it as very funny and decided it had a place in the discourse of SMKR. I wound up printing the comment (
as I’ve done for all of my favorites), and it’s been on my wall for months, causing me to roll my eyes or smile depending on my mood.

  Most parents I know would agree that 100 percent supervision of their children is next to impossible to achieve. In the course of a day with small children, one has to take the occasional gamble. Perhaps you have bathroom needs, a laundry cycle to shift, a phone call or doorbell to answer. At those instances, if the children are playing nicely or otherwise occupied, it’s reasonable to seize the moment and dash. And mostly this works out great! Mostly.

  The majority of you seem to live in the same world as I do. That is, it’s my experience that even the most engaged, fabulous, and attentive parents will miss preventing the occasional disaster. Wonderful, responsible parents make mistakes. And even the most obedient, perfectly nurtured child blows it now and again. Thirty seconds of unsupervised time is all it can take! It’s quite impressive, really.

  This is not about fault or blame. A huge number of SMKR images depict chaos and destruction, but none exhibit genuine malice. In fact, as often as our kids are the culprits, sometimes parents themselves do quite a bit of the ruining. “You know the people who are always sure about the proper way to raise children? Those who’ve never had any.” Tell ’em, Bill Cosby! I was the greatest parent in the world until I had kids. I’ve come to find out I’m exceedingly human and my idea of what constitutes great parenting has evolved.

  As you know, the name of my site and this book came about as a result of actual ruined items, but the definition quickly evolved to include many creative usages. Technically, of course, many of the items herein are not actually ruined. As I’ve mentioned, most of the items in my “ruined” things album are still in use in our home. The word is a shorthand way of saying “messed up” somehow, and one cannot take most of the entries in this book literally—its title could just as easily have been called Bummers in Parenthood.

  It did come awfully close to being called “Stuff” My Kids Ruined. I was not comfortable using shit in the name, but I assured myself that few people beyond my circle of friends would ever even see my site. Whoops! I still blush frequently when asked the name of my site or book.