In Religious Parenting: Transmitting Faith and Values in Contemporary America, Smith, Ritz, and Rotolo push back against taboos of cultural silence and methodological narrowness by asking parents how they share family faith traditions with their children. The burgeoning scholarship on how religion and spirituality inform youth development has focused primarily on youth perspectives (e.g., King and Boyatzis, 2015; Smith and Denton, 2005; Smith and Snell, 2009; Smith, 2011).Footnote ¹ Beyond exploring religion within family life,Footnote ² this volume spotlights parents’ perspectives on intergenerational religious transmission. Rather than a large-scale survey, this study interviewed 235 coupled and single parents in the United States representing more than 150 households. Purposeful, stratified sampling represented diverse traditions (e.g., Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Hindu, Conservative Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, nonreligious) alongside variations in race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, family structure, religious commitment, and residential context, but not all intersecting identities were included given the sample size. Although identity markers contextualized illustrative quotes (e.g., Black Protestant mother from Houston, Muslim mother from New York City, Jewish mother from Indiana, Hispanic Catholic father from New Mexico), consistently naming social positions and exploring their implications is warranted because being racialized, religiously or otherwise minoritized, affects participants’ lived experiences and our analysis of them.Footnote ³

The study sought to identify dominant cultural models parents hold that researchers believe influence caregiving behaviors, while acknowledging that actual cognitions differ from scholarly representation of them. Although the study focused on religious parenting in contemporary America, there is scarce discussion distinguishing the current sociocultural context from earlier cohorts,Footnote ⁴ despite exploding media influences and fluid attitudes about sex, sexuality, and gender relating to changing religious typologies in the United States.Footnote ⁵ The authors initiated “interviews with religious American parents from many backgrounds expecting to encounter diversity, but instead we heard something approaching hegemonic consensus” (206). Acknowledging similarities, the thematic quotes illustrate a range in forms and functions of religious parenting. Many parents reported loosely incorporating religious “values” throughout their family practices to promote belonging relying minimally on congregations, liturgy, or doctrinal teachings. Interestingly, “parents almost never spelled out the specific content of their values” (270). Perhaps not surprisingly, families from substantially structured religious traditions or who reported being highly adherent reported more religious features in family life (e.g., going to church or Mass even if on vacation, knowing Jewish rituals or Hindu mantras from a young age). Across families, parenting reflected theories that the most appropriate religious instruction centered around indirect modeling and socialization, not indoctrination or control. Families also reported direct teaching such as responding to children's religious questions, intentional teaching at home or through a religious leader or organization, or pointing out religious issues as they arise. Functionally, families mostly hoped that religion would help their child develop to be a “good” person with a “good” life, and be morally guided and connected to others, particularly family. Beyond the positive gloss associated with religion, many parents were concerned about religious fanaticism, converting to a tradition they did not prefer, and “lamentable” aspects of religiousness (e.g., judgmental, self-righteous).

Although many families hoped to transmit religion to their children, families varied in their religious goals and reflections on their own spiritual journeys. Some parents preferred their children to maintain their faith tradition or “stay close” to a similar faith system, whereas others were open to their children exploring other traditions as long as they maintained some spiritual or religious grounding. A minority of families yearned that their children maintain their family faith as a primary means to a righteous life and salvation, perhaps reflecting the religious groups and levels of commitment represented in the sample. Within any religious group, Smith's previous scholarship describes a subset of individuals who are “devoted” and may differ qualitatively or quantitatively from other less religiously committed adherents.Footnote ⁶ Future research may explore how parents’ attitudes about particular intergenerational religious transmission goals covaries by the level of devotion and particular religious teachings. Jewish, Mormon, and Muslim families indicated investment in maintaining the vitality of their religiously minoritized traditions, as did Hindu families but with greater commitment to cultural than religious identity (270).

Although the discourse-based sociological inquiry with a cultural and anthropological orientation contributes to the religious and theological scholarship, this inquiry would further be enhanced by incorporating an applied developmental lens to studying family systems within cultural contexts. Such a multi-person analysis within (conflicting) cultural contexts can integrate how families select particular ways to channel their children's religious socialization,Footnote ⁷ in a manner that reflects caregivers’ ethno-theories and respective developmental niches.Footnote ⁸ Expanding on findings from interviews of youth and caregivers across a range of Abrahamic faith traditions,Footnote ⁹ this study depicts common parenting ground while mapping out complexities in how families transmit faith and values through a range of everyday and ritual practices, metaphors, and direct and indirect teachings. Parents’ widespread appreciation for the opportunity to reflect on their religious parenting with interested others suggests a hunger for future research and deeper explorations of commonalities, divergences, and personal and cultural reasons for them.