The Joys of Parenting
Evangelical parents have to deal with the same issues as any other parents. Diaper pails, skinned knees, learner’s permits, college funds…
But they have a unique perspective on faith and parenting as they look back on what it has been like to raise a child as an evangelical Christian.
Evangelical Parenting: Regrets, Results, and Hopes is the latest report from Grey Matter Research and Infinity Concepts. The study asks over 550 American evangelical Protestant parents about parenting. This includes those with grown children as well as those still raising theirs.. Because siblings can be so different from each other, we asked each parent about their oldest child.
Regrets
Three out of four evangelical parents (76%) wish their oldest child were more involved in the Christian faith. Strongly wishing for this is particularly common among parents of adult children.
Nearly two-thirds of parents (63%) believe they could have done things differently to help their child build a stronger Christian commitment. This feeling is especially common among parents who say their child’s Christian commitment is weaker than their own.
Fascinatingly, even among parents who say their child is too young to have developed religious beliefs, 53% feel they could be doing more to help those beliefs develop.
But they aren’t.
Results
Half of all evangelical parents (51%) feel their child is less committed to Christianity than they are as the parent. This includes 26% who say their child is committed to Christianity, but less so than they are as the parent. Another 20% say their child is not committed to Christianity. Five percent admit they don’t know what their child’s spiritual beliefs are.
Effort does not always equate to results. The more spiritually engaged a parent is, the more likely the oldest child is to be committed to Christianity. And the more important parents say their faith has been in how they parent their child, the more likely the child is to be a committed believer.
However, even among evangelical parents who say their faith has been extremely important in their parenting, 35% say their child is less committed to Christianity than they are as the parent, or not committed at all.
Hopes
Evangelical parents have not given up hope. Eighty-three percent talk to their child regularly about Christianity, including 89% whose oldest child is under 18, but also 80% with a child who has already become an adult.
In addition, 92% say they truly believe their child will become stronger in the faith or return to the Christian faith as the child matures.
The Role of Parents
In our 2023 report The Spiritual Journey, we discovered the single greatest influence in evangelicals becoming Christian is one or both parents. In our 2012 study The Heart of the Donor, we learned the greatest predictor of whether someone donates money is whether they saw their parent(s) modeling and encouraging this behavior as they were growing up. Parental behavior is more important as a predictive factor than religion, income, education, race/ethnicity, age, or anything else.
The importance of parents to a child’s development – including their spiritual development – is impossible to overstate. Learn more about the perspectives of evangelical parents in Evangelical Parenting: Regrets, Results, and Hopes.
Evangelical Parenting is free by request – just e-mail ron@greymatterresearch.com.
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