Effects of Religious Practice on Family Relationships

In general, religious participation appears to foster an authoritative, warm, active, and expressive style of parenting. Parents who attend religious services are more likely to enjoy a better relationship with their children¹⁾ and are more likely to be involved with their children’s education.²⁾

Moreover, the greater a child’s religious involvement, the more likely both the child and parent will agree about the quality of their relationship,³⁾ the more similar their values will be, and the greater their emotional closeness will be.⁴⁾

Compared with mothers who did not consider religion important, those who deemed religion to be very important rated their relationship with their child significantly higher, according to a 1999 study. When mothers and their children share the same level of religious practice, they experience better relationships with one another. For instance, when 18- year-olds attended religious services with approximately the same frequency as their mothers, the mothers reported significantly better relationships with them, even many years later, indicating that the effects of similar religious practice endures. Moreover, mothers who became more religious throughout the first 18 years of their child’s life reported a better relationship with that child, regardless of the level of their religious practice before the child was born. Mothers who attended religious services less often over time reported a lower-quality relationship with their adult child.⁵⁾

Grandmothers’ religious practice illustrates an intergenerational influence. The more religious a mother’s mother is, the more likely the mother has a good relationship with her own child.⁶⁾

Greater religious practice of fathers is associated with better relationships with their children, higher expectations for good relationships in the future, a greater investment in their relationships with their children, a greater sense of obligation to stay in regular contact with their children, and a greater likelihood of supporting their children and grandchildren.⁷⁾

Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia found that fathers’ religious affiliations and religious attendance were positively associated with their involvement in activities with their children, such as one-on-one interaction, having dinner with their families, and volunteering for youth related activities. Compared with fathers who had no religious affiliation, those who attended religious services frequently were more likely to monitor their children, praise and hug their children, and spend time with their children. In fact, fathers’ frequency of religious attendance was a stronger predictor of paternal involvement in one-on-one activities with children than were employment and income—the factors most frequently cited in the academic literature on fatherhood.⁸⁾

Wilcox also traced the “pathways” through which religion affects fathers’ relationships with their children and concluded that religious affiliation and especially religious attendance have unique effects that are independent of conventional habits of civic engagement. The emphasis that religion typically places on family life, along with churches’ family-focused social networks of support and psychological support of fatherhood, helps to explain why religiously active fathers are more involved in youth-related activities.⁹⁾

According to a 2016 Pew Research Center Report, highly religious Americans¹⁰⁾ are most likely to attend gatherings with their extended family at least once a month, and, correspondingly, are most likely to report being “very satisfied” with their family life.¹¹⁾ “Unaffiliated” Americans are less likely than those of Christians or non-Christian faiths to be “very satisfied” with their family life.¹²⁾ The National Survey of Families and Households shows that adults who attended frequent religious services as children reported more frequent contact with and higher quality relationships with their mother and father.¹³⁾

According to the General Social Survey (1972-2006), adults who attend religious services at least weekly are more likely to believe in the importance of having their own children than those who worship less frequently.¹⁴⁾ (See Chart )

The National Survey of Children's Health shows that children who attend worship at least weekly have a higher-quality relationship with their parents than those who worship less frequently.¹⁵⁾ (See Chart Below)

Both family structure and religious attendance effect the quality of parent-child relationships. The National Survey of Children's Health showed that children from intact families who frequently attended worship were most likely to have a high-quality relationship with their parents. ¹⁶⁾ (See Chart Below)

Couples who share the same religious commitment are less likely to commit acts of domestic violence.¹⁷⁾ Men who attend religious services at least weekly are less than half as likely to commit an act of violence against their partners as their peers who attend once yearly or less.¹⁸⁾ Regular attendance at religious services has a strong and statistically significant inverse association with the incidence of domestic abuse.¹⁹⁾ Mothers who attended religious services less often over time reported a lower quality relationship with their adult child.²⁰⁾ Compared to those who consider themselves “very religious,” those who are “not at all religious” are far more likely to bear a child out of wedlock (among whites, three times as likely; among Hispanics, 2.5 times as likely; and among blacks, twice as likely).²¹⁾