Only a minority of parents emphasize passing on their faith to children: study

While mental health concerns top the list of worries for parents today, and studies suggest religion is good for mental health, passing on their religious beliefs to their children is not highly prioritized by U.S. adults with children younger than 18, new data from the Pew Research Center show.

Across racial and ethnic lines, overwhelming majorities of U.S. adults with children younger than 18 believe being a parent is either one of or the most important aspect of who they are as a person. But when it comes to prioritizing the passing on of their faith to their children, white Evangelicals and black Protestants are the only two Christian groups where a majority of parents prioritize this.

“Parents place less importance on their children growing up to have religious or political beliefs that are similar to their own. About a third (35%) say it is extremely or very important to them that their children share their religious beliefs, and 16% say the same about their children’s political beliefs,” Pew researchers Rachel Minkin and Juliana Horowitz said in Parenting in America Today released on Tuesday. “Republican and Democratic parents are about equally likely to say it’s at least very important to them that their children share their political beliefs.”… (Excerpt from The Christian Post)