Norwegian here: Why do American fathers allow their children to grow up playing tackle football?

American football has been ingrained in American culture for at least 70 years.

In the 1950s, football was the only sport that really attracted attention. Football players were considered "cool." They got to date all the beautiful girls. Non-contact sports like golf, tennis, baseball, track, cross country, and even basketball generated very little interest, except in a few regions. Soccer was non-existent in the US in the 1950s. As a kid, I didn't even know soccer existed.

It wasn't so much that parents encouraged kids to play football. The kids yearned to play football. Heck, I tried out for my high school football team at my then 5'5" 110 pound frame.

Back then, football players were normal people with some athletic skills. Today, linemen often weigh over 300 pounds! If you watch games of the old NFL in the 1950s or 1960s, the players were laughably slow, with only a few rare exceptions.

Today, I would STRONGLY discourage my grandkids or nephews from playing football. I think the majority of American parents with little kids would feel the same way. Kids WANT to play football because it makes them cool. To kids back then and still today, football (and basketball) offered an easy way out of poverty and an easy way to success in life. Of course, the reality is different. Very, very few middle school American football players go on to success in college and even fewer in the NFL. Kids don't know that. They don't see the injuries that cripple players for life.They see Dak Prescott making $260 million for playing a game and, frankly, he's arguably barely a top ten QB. He's sitting out the entire season now with a torn hamstring tendon and he will STILL make $60 million this year!

Soccer balls to the head can't be very good for you

They naively think their son will be one of the lucky one that doesn't get severe CTE.

Don't know what that is but it isn't football.

My parents never let me play football when I was a kid, and I was always a little resentful of that. I still played tons of other sports. As an adult now, I get it. My son is almost 6, plays baseball and basketball, but he’s asked me several times when he can start playing football 😭

We watch a lot of footbal on tv but he doesn’t understand yet that a lot of these guys are doing lifelong damage to themselves.

It's not, but it's nowhere near the level of taking constant hits in football.

If you are a halfway decent hs football player you can get a scholarship. school i worked at we would have 8-10 kids get football scholarships.
a sport like xc - you need to be pretty much all-state to get a partial.
hockey - you almost need to be drafted before hand.
Parents let their kids play football because of the potential $ compared to other sports.

Football has big teams. At small town schools in order to fill the roster, there are no cuts. I think good parents encourage their kids to pursue whatever sports they are interested in.

I can't speak for everyone, but my parents discouraged (but did not stop me) me from playing football, even though we watched it on tv most weekends in the fall. I imagine those with fathers who played the game might be pushed into it a bit at a young age and then have several years experience by high school.

Hockey is more violent. Women’s soccer and basketball aren’t safe. Pickleball is bad for the knees.

Best to keep your kids inside and don’t expose them to the cruel world.

Yes, stay inside on the computer, its the neo-ludite way.

Neo-Luddites love God’s creation and spend as much time in the great outdoors than inside.

Wrong. Baseball was America's #1 sport until 1972, based on Gallup polling.

news.gallup.com

Football Retains Dominant Position as Favorite U.S. Sport

Jeffrey M. Jones

Football remains Americans' favorite sport to watch, with baseball and basketball a distant second.

Open link

But the risk of sustaining serious head, neck and brain injuries from hits to the head with soccer balls, using your head to hit soccer balls, is markedly different depending on your sex.

Female players in girls’ and women’s soccer suffer serious head, neck and brain injuries from contact with the ball at significantly higher rates than male players do in boys’ and men’s soccer. I believe the rate is 2.5-3 times higher.

If you compare the numbers of concussions in American boys' HS tackle football to the numbers of concussion in American girls' HS soccer each year, and factor them against the disparate numbers of students who play these two popular American HS sports, I think you'll find that American girls' HS soccer has a higher rate of serious head inury than American boys' HS tackle football.

Boys’ tackle football accounts for nearly 40% of total concussions incurred in American HS sports each year, whilst girls’ soccer accounts for 20%. But around 2.5 times more boys play HS tackle football than girls play HS soccer.

The most recent school year I can find stats for is 2018-2019. That year, a little over 1 million male students in the US played HS tackle football, and they suffered a total of 99,036 concussions in games against other teams and practice with their own teams.

The same year, a little under 384,000 female students in the US played HS girls’ soccer, and they suffered a total of 48,402 concussions in games against other teams and practice with their own teams.

Americans are brain dead anyway.

Probably for reasons parents in New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, allow their kids to play sports like rugby, and Aussie Rules football. There have to have been millions of kids who have played football in my lifetime. The percentage who have suffered some sort of brain trauma is tiny. That said, for many parents a lot of thought goes into deciding whether or not to allow their sons play football.

Ode to Rachel Humphreys.. i wanna play football for the coach.

In America, it's the first step to manhood.