“When Fathers Beam and Mothers Wince”

Abstract

Abstract Since the late nineteenth century, the figure of the “worried mother” has featured prominently in popular debates about American football's risks and benefits. This article analyzes portrayals of mothers’ concerns about concussions and other youth football injuries in newspapers, journals, and sports magazines. Mothers occasionally penned opinion columns or were quoted in news stories, but most commonly, the “worried mother” was depicted by male sportswriters, physicians, and coaches writing about football safety. The “worried mother” posed an existential threat to youth football should she prohibit her son from participating or insist on a wholesale transformation of the rules; she thus needed to be reassured by coaches and league administrators. From nineteenth-century appeals to the “gentler sex” to the early twenty-first-century “moms’ clinics” sponsored by the National Football League, narratives surrounding “worried mothers” profoundly shaped popular perceptions of youth football's risks.