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​Major Finding 2: Religion/Spirituality are the least of parent’s concerns

We asked parents and likely parents about a variety of issues likely to come up with childraising including asking them to rate how important it is to teach different skills to their children and how much they worry about different scenarios.  In both cases, issues of faith and spirituality ranked last for parents.  Additionally, parents and prospective parents are not particularly concerned with passing on their faith.  When we asked them about what they wanted for their children as adults, having similar religious beliefs ranked ahead of only having similar political beliefs.

Chart 3: How important is it that your children do each of the following as adults: (Not at all important-1…Extremely important-5) ​

The data suggest that for parents and prospective parents there has been a decoupling of faith/spirituality from other indicators of thriving.  Parents want their kids to have good careers, be financially stable, work hard, etc.  However, they don’t necessarily see faith as a connected to those endeavors.  This suggests that the church has done a poor job of showing how a strong religious or spiritual life is intertwined with the other areas of health and happiness.  

Gallup has consistently demonstrated that people who are religious experience better wellbeing(6), but that connection has not been made clear to the general public.  Religious leaders should resist boiling down their faith to a tool for health and happiness, but emphasizing the connection between a relationship with God and life of purpose and meaning deserves more focus than it’s been getting, especially for young parents.

​https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/512216/religion-spirituality-tools-better-wellbeing.aspx