“My Grandmother was routinely cheated on...”
Glamorizing the “olden days” is easy to do. Facing the realities of what our Grandmothers and Great-Grandmothers endured and rose above is a different story. My Great-Aunt was similar... had the crap beaten out of her on a regular basis. No education or job skills to really escape and the societal pressure that only “bad” women left their husbands. Until the day that he beat her so badly that she gave birth to a stillborn baby later that night... a dead baby with bruises. She went to her parish priest who told her to “keep a nice house and not get him angry”. So she became a “bad” girl. She borrowed money and took the kids and left. Got a job in a city a thousand miles away.
Girls that participate in sports are less likely to do drugs, get pregnant as a teen, and do better academically. She is also more likely to have a positive “body image”.. meaning she isn’t sticking her finger down her throat to fit into a body mold defined as “feminine”. If and when you have daughters, you will be an awesome parent!
So glad that in modern America no woman is cheated on or beaten any more.
Seriously, both those pathologies are surely MORE prevalent today than in our grandmothers days—that’s not glamorizing that era, as I’m not saying things were great then....just facing facts.
Is involvement in healthy extra-curricular activity like sports a good thing? Sure, to a degree.
It can also become a god.... (look at MEN’s football at Penn State.....)
ALL of our grandmothers were, MUCH “less likely to do drugs, get pregnant as a teen, and do better academically” than even female athletes today.... even with the discrimination and hard-times they faced.
Why is that?