New report explores influence of faith on family

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a new report exploring the influence of faith and different religions on family life.

The report, published on Friday, questions the negative link commonly made in the media between religious beliefs and parenting practices, warning that “the positive benefits of a religious upbringing are in danger of at best becoming minimised and at worst being ignored”.

It also noted that religious beliefs and practices “do not appear to be disappearing as predicted” but are instead shifting in construct from institution to ‘believing without belonging’.

“If this is the case, it is inevitable that religious beliefs and practices, whether focusing on the beliefs themselves or practices including active membership of a faith community, have influenced and will continue to influence family life.

The report said that the influence of religious beliefs and practices on family life was particularly significant in adolescence, when young people start to form their own identity and beliefs.

The Joseph Rowntree interviewed 151 parents and children from a variety of faith back grounds, including Christian, Muslim and Hindu, and also those of no faith.

The majority of young respondents expressed a belief in God, although older teenagers were more likely to describe themselves as religious, while those aged 13 to 14 were more likely to be unsure or describe themselves as not religious.

A higher proportion of young people at non-faith schools expressed a belief in God and described themselves as religious than respondents who attended faith schools. Similarly, a higher number of young people at non-faith schools said they attended worship regularly than those at faith schools. The young people attending regular worship tended to belong to the older age brackets.

Young people who belonged to a religious family were, however, more likely to be believe in God and describe themselves as religious than those from non-religious families.

The report found that the strongest influence on belief appeared to be the faith community with which the young person identified. Although of the young Muslims interviewed identified themselves as religious, the young Christian respondents varied in their self-categorisation from religious to not religious.

Among the 77 parents taking part in the research, only one said they did not believe in God, and another, a Catholic, admitted they were not sure.

Most of the parents described themselves as religious, with the exception of a large proportion of the non-Catholic Christians who tended to describe themselves as ‘not religious’, and most of the parents said they engaged in private prayer on a daily basis.

“Overall, both the young people and parents sampled described a high level of religious behaviours, beliefs and practices, with the parents reporting higher levels of belief and practice than the young people. In contrast to the sample of young people participating, there was a higher degree of certainty about religious beliefs, affiliations and practices among the parents,” the report said.

For most of the religious parents and some of the religious children, their religion was a way of life that should be transmitted between generations.

“Sometimes you follow in your mum and dad’s footsteps because you’re part of them,” said one Catholic girl attending a faith school.

“I see it [religion] as a way of life, which I have learnt from my parents,” said a Hindu mother.

The religious parents saw passing on their faith as their responsibility and regarded faith values as the foundation for the guidance they offered to their children.

“I think most parents teach the kids about religion: we’re all born in a Muslim family, so we’re Muslims, so we basically follow our religion. We grew up with it,” said one Muslim father.

“I think having a faith that you’re living out affects your moral outlook on life and so therefore your boundaries are connected with your moral outlook on life,” said one Christian mother.

While young people acknowledged that attending worship together with their parents was important even if they do not actually want to participate, some religious parents recognised that their children were participating only out of duty and expressed disappointment that they were not more interested in the religion itself.

“I think they should go [to worship] sometimes just to show your parents that you do love them because if they like going to church then you should go with them because it’s spending family time together,” said one Church of England student.

One mother from a mixed faith group said of her son, “If it isn’t becoming relevant for him, then he’s going to be straight out of the church at 18 or less, 15 even. It’s sad that church isn’t working for him.”

Parents were aware that it was important for them to ‘practise what they preached’.

“If there is some kind of tension or some kind of ambiguity or some hypocrisy or some gap between what parents are promoting and perhaps what they’re modelling then I can understand that being quite a pressure for a young person,” said one Christian mother.

Participation in religious activities was also noted as an area for negotiation between parents and children.

“You might be forced to do something you’re not really going to like but you grow up and you might try to go to church or something, you might end up actually liking it but you were forced when you were young and just hated it,” said one Church of England student.

One Christian mother also noted the conflict religious parents often have in determining how much of their faith should be imposed on their children.

“Do you make them go or do you give them a bit of space and hope that they’ll make the right choice in the end? I don’t know to be honest because I’m there with my son at the moment you know, he doesn’t want to go to church at the moment and what do you do? Do you push him, do you leave him?”

The report concluded that both the young people and parents in the study recognised the responsibilities of good parenting.

“This seemed to transcend particular religious beliefs or faith stance. However, for the religious family, their beliefs, religious practices or faith community involvement may provide a strong framework within which to interpret their roles as parents. It could be argued that for such families, their faith might actually strengthen their parenting.”