Sexting – sending provocative messages and photos via text messaging – is the new cyber-bullying. It’s replaced the online bullying, terrorism and even trans fats as The Root Of All Evil Things That Occur. Among the many slack-jawed lunatics who’ve declared the war on Sext are:

• Politicians, who are racing to write unenforceable laws before election time – why fix the economy when you can prevent John Doe from sending a dirty message to his mistress?
• Journalists, who’ve written no fewer than 15,000 stories about sexting in the last 48 hours. Fifteen. Thousand.
• Brett Farve, who decided to send pictures of his penis to former Vikings employees, instead of working on his throwing arm. OK, that’s not a war, but it’s certainly stoked the mob mentality.
• Law enforcement, who, with a few exceptions, know about as much about text messaging as I do about marksmanship.

Even the AARP is getting into the act with a paid ad on Google:

The article then describes sexting and provides do’s and don’ts. Nice to know AARP is as good at pandering as the rest of us.

Sexting isn’t the point

Sexting isn’t inherently bad. Using it to harass other people is. And (I’m starting to sound like I’m a Republican – I’m not) there are plenty of laws on the books dealing with harassment.

Harassment – which is bullying, by the way – used to come in the form of girlie calendars, sideways remarks and Mad Men-esque behavior designed to make another person feel like less of a person. It targeted those who were different by gender, appearance, behavior, lifestyle, etc..

It still targets the same people, for the same reason. It just uses different channels: Facebook. Web sites. E-mail. And text messaging.

Pretending sexting is, in itself, the problem is dishonest, intellectually lazy and short-sighted. It’s an easy refuge for weak-minded people who don’t really care about bullying, but want to ‘make a statement’.

An honest approach

The honest approach is to understand that every one of us is responsible for preventing harassing behavior, whether it’s via text message or verbal abuse. If you want to protect your children/coworkers/self from harassment via sexting, you need to do the same things you’d do to protect them from any other harassment:

• Call harassment what it is: Cheesy, tacky, cowardly bullying.
• Teach those around you the same thing.
• Discipline your kids and employees when they’re behaving inappropriately. Behind every bully is a mentor who didn’t give a crap.
• If your local politician tells you the great job they’re doing by focusing on sexting, call them on it: Tell them they’re insulting your intelligence, and ask them to focus on real issues, instead.

“Oh, you must be the unfun parent!”

That’s what a perfect stranger cheerfully blurted out to me about 4 years ago. I had just summarily dismissed my kids’ appeals for Another Piece of Candy Please Daddy. My children, Harrison and Morgan, took it in stride – by then, they were used my candy-scrimping, TV-blocking ways.

To this woman, though, I was some kind of oddity, because I wouldn’t let my kids have their fourth piece of chocolate that afternoon, 30 minutes before dinner.

At first, I was insulted, and nearly replied with a comment about her tween-aged kids’ shape (round) and size (no comment). But I realized: I like the title.

I am the unfun parent. I love my kids more than anything else on the planet. I will happily sacrifice my popularity to help them grow up safe and healthy. And, I figure I can always bribe my way back into their good graces with a car or something when they’re older.

So, unfun parents of the world, unite! Our children may see us as dictators, but someday they’ll thank us.

The book is now published and available. But my site is a default Thesis installation with all the charm of a cardboard box.

To make up for it, I’m offering lower prices for the paperback and e-book versions until the end of July:

$9.70 for the paperback

$4.70 for the e-book

Have at it, folks. You can read about the book in my previous blog post, or get a preview, or maybe even buy it, on Lulu.com.

Thanks, and happy reading!

It’s here, folks! The Unfun Parent: Keeping Your Kids Safe (and happy) in the Internet Age is officially available. You can buy it here. You can order it in paperback or ebook format.

To order, click here

What’s it about? The Un-Fun Parent is a short, to-the-point set of specific actions you can take to help your child learn to keep themselves safe on the internet. In the book, I tell you how I:

• Set limits on my childrens’ internet time
• Keep an eye on what they do online
• Protect them from cyber bullying
• Negotiate things like Facebook friendship

It’s straight-from-the-hip. As if you’d expect anything else from yours truly.

For the month of July, I’m offering the book at for $9.70 in print, $4.70 in e-book format. After July, it’ll go up to $14.99 in print, and $9.99 for the e-book.

To order, click here