A commonly held view of the relationship between parents and children is that parents ought to promote the wellbeing of their children. While this may have some limits, perhaps a parent doesn’t have to sacrifice a large good for themselves in exchange for a infinitesimally small gain for their child, but in general, parents ought to promote the wellbeing of their children. Even further than this, parents have a duty to not harm their children; while they may be justified in not always acting in the child’s best interests, it is difficult to see when they would be justified in purposefully harming the child. This can obviously be applied to situations such as child abuse and neglect, but I wish to apply it to a less intuitive case: contact sports. I am of the view that parents are morally prohibited from placing their children in contact sports, and are morally obligated to prevent their children from playing contact sports, due to a child’s inability to consent.
To preface – I am a lifelong player of contact sports. I began playing hockey (albeit with no body contact) at 4 years old, and began tackle football at 10 years old. I play tackle football to this day, putting me at around 11 years in the sport. While I cannot draw any causal claims, I also tend to suffer from neck pain, back pain, routine and daily headaches and knee pain, to name a few. I attribute a large portion, if not all, of these ailments to playing football. While I certainly understand the risks now, when I began playing I had no idea of the future harms I was subjecting myself to. I had no idea what concussions, torn ligaments, fractured vertebrae or slipped discs were. Even if I had known, at 10 years old, I seriously doubt my ability to adequately grasp these risks. Further, I suffer from these ailments despite the fact that I played the position with the least contact, quarterback, for the bulk of these years. However, having said this, I shan’t delay with anecdotes any longer.
Due to the obligation of parents to not only prevent harm, but promote the wellbeing of their children, they ought not to enroll them in contact sports until the child has reached an adequate age and understanding to grasp and assess the risks for themselves. While contact sports have obvious benefits – I learned (to only name a few) how to be a teammate, how to sacrifice for others, how to work hard, how we are stronger together than we are apart and made many lifelong friends along the way. While I wouldn’t trade these lessons and these friends for anything, I am of the opinion that these benefits I have derived do not outweigh the significant physical harms I incurred, especially when compared to what I could have gained playing a non-contact sport. While risks of physical harm may exist in any sport, they are clearly exacerbated in football and hockey, while the benefits gained in these sports are not sufficiently greater to offset this. Thus, if parents deem sports to be a beneficial activity for their children, they ought to enroll them in one that does not have these harms.
Let us now consider whether children themselves can consent to playing these sports. Perhaps a child sees a game of football or hockey on television and inquires to their parents about playing the sport themselves; what ought the parents to do? While the child may want to play, it is important to consider whether they can consent to playing. Consider what it takes to consent: one must not merely have a desire, but have adequate knowledge of the consequences, and adequate capacities to understand and evaluate these concepts. There seems to be many complex concepts that children would then need to grasp in order to consent to contact sports: the harms of concussion, especially with the prevalence of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in athletes who have played contact sports for an extended period time, the potential loss of proper limb function, and potential risks of spine/neck damage, among other things. These concepts, especially those relating to concussions and CTE, are not simple. I am not certain at what point one can grasp these concepts, but due to the complexity of brain injuries and their long-term effects, I would conjecture no younger than the average sixteen year old would be able to adequately understand and assess these risks.
It is important to not underestimate the effects of head trauma on developing brains, nor the repeated trauma on already developed brains. Allowing young children to play contact sports may significantly impair their development. Even fully-developed adults who go through the repeated head trauma that these sports entail suffer grave consequences. Consider the myriad of professional athletes who have taken their own lives following (or during) their careers: Junior Seau and Rick Rypien to name a few. Further, studies have shown that CTE is near unanimous in former NFL players (110 of 111). These risks cannot be ignored, and pose a serious obstacle that children and young adults must grasp before they can properly consent to partaking in these potentially life-changing activities.
It can be seen that through a parental obligation to prevent harm and promote the wellbeing of their children, they are morally prohibited from enrolling them in contact sports. Further, children themselves cannot consent to contact sports, as they are unable to grasp the risks entailed by the activities. Due to the seriousness of the potential harms of these sports, mostly brain injuries, the requirement for a child to consent is significantly high. I conjecture that at minimum, one must be sixteen years old to consent to contact sports, although this may be slightly too low or high. Contact sports, while possibly beneficial, pose serious risks that cannot be underestimated, and as such we must be extremely cautious in how we allow children to approach them.
