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I have always feared the idea of my son playing tackle football. I've just heard about too many young men getting hurt playing the sport, and I've also never been a fan of the violence. I hoped he wouldn't be drawn to the sport so it wouldn't be an issue, but a few factors have led to his love of the game.
My son's father played football in high school and his stepfather is a big college football fan, so both male parental figures in his life are fans of the sport. He's heard stories about his dad playing football and has grown up watching it on TV his entire life. By the time my son was in first grade, he started asking me if he could play himself. Instead of giving him an outright no and hoping that he would lose interest in it, I just said that we could talk about it when he was older.
Since we live in an area where youth football is popular, many of his classmates and friends play in leagues for boys his age. The more friends my son made who played football outside school, the more he asked me whether he could join a league, too. Since he had the opportunity to play flag and touch football in school at recess, in PE, and during daycare after school, I told him that was plenty. But he was persistent in his request to play, so I finally had to have a real talk about why I didn't want him to; I thought tackle football was just too dangerous.
I explained that I didn't want him to have a serious injury this young — or any age, for that matter — because of something like football. Fortunately for me, both his father and stepdad agreed with my concerns. My son was upset, but the more he saw that I wasn't going to change my mind about it, the less he asked. We had compromised on him playing in high school if that was something he still wanted to do, though I held onto hope he would grow out of it by then.
When he got invited to a football-themed birthday party recently, I watched him play flag football with the other boys for two hours straight. Other moms told me that their sons had told them what a good throw my son had, and as I saw him in the yard with his friends, making plays and catching tosses, I realized something that I hadn't before. I was keeping my son from something that not only made him happy but that he was also really good at.
After adamantly refusing to let him play football for years, I had taken a less harsh stance by the end of the party. I still don't want him to play tackle football — ever, if I'm being truthful — I am going to let him play a season of flag football this spring.
While I watched him play at the party, I asked the other moms about the football leagues their sons played in. Every other youth session offered during the year in our area is tackle football, but the spring session is the only one that's flag football. Since the only part of my son playing football that scares me is the tackling, I decided to let him try out a season of flag football with his friends. By the end of the party, I had signed him up for the season on my phone through a link that the other moms had sent me.
While I realize that allowing him to play flag football may lead to my son wanting to play tackle football even more in the future, I don't want to keep him from experiencing more of what I saw at that party. Not wanting him to play football has been a constant internal struggle for me. I've worried about the effect of keeping him from trying out something he clearly loves, but have also felt conflicted about going against my instincts in allowing him to do something I believe is dangerous.
For now, a season of flag football feels like a healthy compromise for both of us. If the conversation on tackle football comes up again, I'll have to deal with it to the best of my parenting abilities when that time comes. While I haven't wavered in thinking it comes with hazards, especially for young boys, I have changed my mind about not wanting to be the person who keeps my son from doing something he genuinely enjoys — and might even be destined to do.
