New research finds parents want kids to share their religious beliefs

WASHINGTON D.C. — Most parents in America are getting what they want from their kids when it comes to religion. A Pew Research Center study found that more than 80% of U.S. children have the same religious and political beliefs as their parents.

Further, parents told Pew researchers that it’s important that their kids hold the same beliefs as they do, but it’s more important that the kids share the parent’s religious beliefs. Pew reports that about 35% of parents want their children to have the same faith and that 16% said the same for politics.

A large majority of white Protestants, 70%, said that kids having the same faith as their parents is “extremely important.”

The Pew researchers also surveyed kids about these issues, asking teens between the ages of 13 and 17 about their beliefs. They found that between 80- and 90% of teens held the same religious beliefs and political beliefs as their parents.

Overall, whether the parent is Catholic or Protestant, or a Republican or Democrat — more than 80% of all kids in each category held the same beliefs as their parents. The Pew Center said they didn’t have enough data on non-Christian faiths to include parents and children of those faiths in this survey. 

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