Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Time Magazine Criticizes 'Crappy' Parents Who Allow Their Children to Watch Football
mrcNewsbusters ^ | January 28, 2020 | Jay Maxson

Posted on 01/29/2020 4:31:57 PM PST by Morgana

If you are encouraging your children to watch football, you may be a "crappy" parent. Football exposes players to the risk of brain damage, and the pro game discriminates against Colin Kaepernick and African American coaches. As a parent who subjects children to football's flaws, you may be a co-conspirator to their hedonism, cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy, alleges Time magazine senior writer Sean Gregory. His story, "Is it Unethical to Watch Football With Your Kids?" will appear in Time's February issue.

He begins:

As another super bowl approaches, I keep thinking about a clear September afternoon at MetLife Stadium, home of the New York Giants, and wondering if I’m a crappy dad.

Gregory beats himself up throughout his tortured account of football's evils, but ― spoiler alert ― he takes his young son Will to New York Giants games and watches the sport he crucifies:

"But should I be O.K. with his watching the game? Don’t his (Will's) eyeballs help support an enterprise that we know can damage [see image of NFL player carted off field above] its participants? This is on top of the laundry list of other reasons to tune out, like the stain of disturbing NFL domestic-violence incidents. Or the apparent blacklisting of a player, Colin Kaepernick, for a peaceful act of protest. Or a sudden dearth of African-American head coaches: three now, as opposed to seven in 2018. Around 60% of the NFL’s players are black. There are no African-American majority owners."

Parents who subject their kids to football do so in age without innocence, he says. A 2017 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed 110 of 111 brains of former NFL players showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Several high-profile former players with the disease committed suicide. Some current players have retired young, including Carolina linebacker Luke Kuechly, just 28.

Some 100 million fans will watch Kansas City and San Francisco battle it out in the next Super Bowl, "in what may be America’s foremost annual display of mass hypocrisy," Gregory claims. "... As a sportswriter who’s relished the opportunity to park myself in multiple Super Bowl press boxes, I’m even more compromised. Not only have I introduced my son to a problematic game, writing about it is part of my job."

Jim Taylor, a California psychologist specializing in sports and parenting, shares Gregory's contempt for football. "By watching football, 'you’re gaining enjoyment from other people’s suffering,' he says. 'There’s no doubt about that.' We house conflicting thoughts in our brain: Football is dangerous; we love football. To ease this inherent conflict, we can either quit football cold–or at least cut back on consumption–or talk ourselves into minimizing its risks. ..."

Taylor says we are hedonistic beings who choose the path that gives us "the utmost pleasure. Not only am I a co-conspirator, now I’m making my kids a co-conspirator. ... "

Michael Bennett McNulty, a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota and a former fan who's tuned out football, says viewers of the game are complicit in its physical toll on players. “Without all the individuals supporting the sport, the harms wouldn’t happen. Saying one is complicit is right and justified.”

Gregory and his son agree there’s a lot to dislike about football, but "there’s still so much I love. So even as I feel some guilt about what I’m watching, I continue to tune in week after week, often with my impressionable teenage boy by my side. Abandoning the game would not just alter his fall Sunday routine but cause parental resentment my heart couldn’t bear." Football may bring them joy, but it's not unadulterated, he writes.

No wonder the conflicted Gregory says he feels like a hypocrite.


TOPICS: Sports; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-36 next last
I agree. The NFL is anti American by the way they take a knee.

Watch Ice Hockey. Watch the Iditarod. Watch anything but the NFL.

1 posted on 01/29/2020 4:31:57 PM PST by Morgana
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Morgana

If you let your children read Time magazine you’re a crappy parent.


2 posted on 01/29/2020 4:32:44 PM PST by Skywise
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

I second the motion.


3 posted on 01/29/2020 4:33:11 PM PST by HighSierra5
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

I agree with Time but probably not for the same reasons.


4 posted on 01/29/2020 4:33:23 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not Averse to Going Bronson.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Skywise

Hmmm. Crappy parents who let grrrrrrrreta* condition their kiddies?

*NOT a TM issue. Yet.


5 posted on 01/29/2020 4:34:27 PM PST by rktman ( #My2ndAmend! ----- Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

But if your boy wants to become a girl, that’s cool.


6 posted on 01/29/2020 4:36:00 PM PST by Luke21
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

A society of neurotics. This guy has too much time on his hands. Take the kid out in the backyard or garage and build something.


7 posted on 01/29/2020 4:36:17 PM PST by headstamp 2 (There's a stairway to heaven, but there's also a highway to hell.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

Is it Time magazine that has Kobe Bryant on the cover this week?


8 posted on 01/29/2020 4:36:31 PM PST by caver
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana
The term "crappy" is best defined by the existence of the pestilence called "Time Magazine"...

Staffed by drug addicts and rehabbed drug addicts, all with the usual brain burn-out symptoms and CPUSA affiliations...

9 posted on 01/29/2020 4:38:58 PM PST by SuperLuminal (Where is Sam Adams now that we desperately need him)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

Football isn’t nearly as dangerous as they are pretending. This is a farce based on money and the SJW effort to destroy everything masculine and American.


10 posted on 01/29/2020 4:39:50 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

The NFL is social engineering. Neither Time nor the NFL are what they were in 1975. Agreeing with Time for the wrong reasons. Everyone enjoy the tranny TV commercial coming up in the Super Bowl (pro life commercial was unacceptable). I can hardly wait. So brave.


11 posted on 01/29/2020 4:41:40 PM PST by cdcdawg (Cornpop was a bad dude!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

die nfl DIE!!!


12 posted on 01/29/2020 4:45:43 PM PST by Chode (Send bachelors and come heavily armed.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

Liberalism is a mental disorder.


13 posted on 01/29/2020 4:49:39 PM PST by Sans-Culotte (With every passing day, I am a little bit gladder that Romney lost in 2012.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Skywise

Because boys should be doing comparative studies on lube and trying on their sister’s clothes instead, according to time?


14 posted on 01/29/2020 4:56:00 PM PST by faturism ( epro)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Skywise
Good news! If you send your kids to public schools there is a good chance that they can't actually read Time magazine.
15 posted on 01/29/2020 5:01:43 PM PST by 17th Miss Regt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Sans-Culotte
There is a movement afoot and there are a certain percentage of 'men' who are self-loathing and are working to destroy masculinity at the behest of feminism.

This soi boy is one of those so-called 'men'.


16 posted on 01/29/2020 5:02:08 PM PST by bagster ("Even bad men love their mamas".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Skywise

Hear...hear!


17 posted on 01/29/2020 5:03:03 PM PST by goodnesswins (Want to know your family genealogy? Run for political office...")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUb0C0iI_GE


18 posted on 01/29/2020 5:04:14 PM PST by BipolarBob (Just imagine the /s after everything I post and we'll all be happier.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

Screw football - Watch hockey!


19 posted on 01/29/2020 5:21:16 PM PST by airborne (I don't always scream at the TV but when I do it's hockey season!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Morgana

Oooo, liberal Time is for boycotting the liberal NFL. I love it. BTW, probably boycotting the Satan Bowl myself for their rejection of the pro-life ad in favor of the trans-freak ad.


20 posted on 01/29/2020 5:24:08 PM PST by stevio (Drain the Swamp!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-36 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson