Why can’t Americans just let their boys embrace their masculinity?

Feminists, abetted by the eager media, give us stories of sex-crazed college boys raping innocent freshman girls, à la Rolling Stone Magazine, however bogus they may be.

Now Bloomberg releases a poll finding that half of Americans don’t want their boys to play football.

Those giving the thumbs-down to football are the usual suspects:  women, college-educated persons making over $100,000 yearly, and yes, Democrats. President Obama even added his own two cents (as usual) by saying, “. . . if I had a son, I’d have to think long and hard before I let him play football.”

In a way, it’s understandable. The National Football League has been wracked with stories of former players living with brain trauma, and the NFL recently admitted that one in three players will be affected by long-term cognitive problems, with those problems often emerging earlier in life than is typical. Some players have even become killers, as we in Kansas City observed two years ago when Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher killed his 22-year-old girlfriend, drove to Arrowhead Stadium, and then shot himself in front of then-manager Scott Pioli and then-head coach Romeo Crennel. His autopsy indicated Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy — head trauma — the same finding as in the autopsies of former NFL players Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, who both committed suicide.

I love football, but I agree with these grim conclusions; and while I’m not a neurologist, I am a speech pathologist who has studied neurology and traumatic brain injury at the graduate school level. Closed-head injuries — the kind most endured on the football field — are more deadly to the brain than the shocking open-head injury, where the skull is broken. During the impact of a closed-head injury, the brain bounces back and forth inside the skull, shearing off nerve endings. Post-impact, the brain swells within the skull with no place to expand, placing extreme pressure on already-traumatized brain tissue. Combine these injuries multiple times over the length of a playing career, and it’s no doubt that professional players are at high risk for cognitive damage. But do I think that professional football should be increasingly regulated? No, the players who sign the contracts are adults making their own decisions to enter a career where there is a strong risk of injury.

Too many parents, however, read these dire stories and think they apply to their sons at the grade school and high school levels. As an Ohio man said, “I just think it has become too dangerous. I don’t think they have the equipment they need to protect themselves, particularly at the junior high and high school level.” However, the statistics don’t bear this out for the young amateur player. A study by Mayo Clinic, which examined whether or not neurological damage was evident among high school football players from the 1940’s and 1950’s — a time when helmets were less robust than now — showed that there was no increase among these men in later life.  Furthermore, when we watch football in our home towns under the Friday Night Lights, we don’t see as massive an impact between young immature males as we do in professional football games, where 300-pound tackles regularly smash into other players. Let’s use a little perspective and more common sense.

Whether these anxious parents like it or not, their boys are genetically and biochemically wired to be aggressive, to push physical boundaries, and to take risks. Boys should not be bubble-wrapped, but encouraged to expend that risk-taking energy in sports participation, and football is an ideal way for them to exert their aggressiveness in a positive way. Football also teaches team-building, reliance on each other, and respect for the authority of the coach. When boys are forbidden to participate in such activities, they miss out on such valuable life lessons.

I raised two daughters, so I missed out on the football contention in our home. However, I am now the grandmother of a two-and-a-half-year-old grandson. He lives on the West Coast, so I don’t see him as much as I like, but when I do, I marvel at the little man-card he’s already creating for himself. He’s completely fearless about walking away on his own. He “goes fast.” He loves to crash his beloved cars and trucks. And if he has a major tantrum, he is not afraid to head-butt my daughter. Needless to say, he’s racked up some frequent time-outs.

My daughter and son-in-law do not coddle the little guy, but provide him with both discipline and the latitude to try new things, even if consequences occur.

This is one of my favorite pictures of my little grandson, taken by his mother, a photographer.

It’s a stunningly beautiful picture, highlighting the dramatic contrast of the tiny child amidst the enormous old-growth trees of the Pacific Northwest. Yet as his grandmother, I admit that it makes me catch my breath. Here is the image of a small child, alone in a forest. His mother and father are not beside him, holding his hands. I know, though, that both his parents were watching him closely during this shot, encouraging him to explore but following behind, ensuring his safety.

This is how boys should be raised — not to be treated as fragile little cupcakes to be enclosed in liners and wrappers, but allowed to exert themselves, with parents behind them, not hovering over them.