"There are a couple of findings that I do want to flag, though. One is that evangelical young adults aren’t fighting with their parents that much. In most cases it was 10% or less across the full range of issues"
Wonder how the graphs might turn out differently if the younger generation were defined by how they were raised instead of their current identity. I suspect, and Ryan hinted indirectly, that those evangelicals who had the best childhood experience continued that to the next generation while those who had a less favorable experience defected. The distribution of recollections may reflect those childhood generated shifts more than the religious identities themselves.
I had the same question: Do atheists who were raised as atheists argue with their atheist parents a bunch, or is this atheists who were raised in a religion who now (understandably) have disagreements with their parents over religion?
Evangelical parents likely don't allow their kids to argue with them, and I don't see that change as the kids become adults. Atheist / agnostic parents may have given their kids permission to argue.
Was a question asked: I would like to disagree with my parents directly, but I'm still not allowed even as an adult.
To give one (possibly idiosyncratic) perspective of someone raised Evangelical, it wasn't necessarily that I was not allowed to argue with them, but rather that certain issues were not discussed. Politics and religion were taboo to talk about outside of church. So while I knew what I was "supposed" to believe (pro-life, anti-lgbtq, etc) it is not a conversation that happens at the dinner table. I suspect my parents know that I have changed stances in some ways, but we have an unspoken agreement not to discuss it.
I wonder whether Catholicism’s emphasis on the family helps to explain the higher rates of communication between adults and their parents.
Now, I know that all religions have some encouragement of filial loyalty, and of course all the Judeo-Christian traditions have the commandment to honor your parents. But as someone who was raised mainline Protestant and converted to Catholicism, the centrality of the family in Catholic readings and imagery has been very striking to me. Certainly, the veneration of Mary is a unique feature of Catholicism (*and Orthodoxy, which I am sure had too few respondents in this survey to be able to show data from) that reinforces the idea that you should call your earthly Mama more often.
I agree on that. I have friends who were raised RC who are in their 30's and are parents themselves now. The families have some sort of unspoken expectation that they will attend church together every Sunday. Times when I have attended church with them in the case of their babies baptism I observe the same cluster of parent, adult child and their own children. I'm not sure it's a matter of faith as it is to not rock the family boat. I don't know.
I think there are probably people who would say if you asked them that they're attending church with their kids and their parents so as to not "rock the boat" with their parents, as you say, and might even tell you that they don't actually believe what the Church has to say. But their behavior is telling us something about what they do truly believe: they believe that it is a good thing to get along well with their parents, and for their children to have a good relationship with their grandparents. They believe that families should spend time together so strongly that they might be attending a Mass that they "don't believe" in, just so everybody can get more family togetherness time. So there's some deep belief about the importance of family that stuck, regardless of what they intellectually think about transubstantiation or the virgin birth.
Brave to dive into this topic. My wife and I are faithful church-goers. We raised two sons in the church. Neither attends and nor do their wives and kids. But we communicate constantly, in-person whenever practical because we live far apart. No drama, lots of love and fun.
A friend from our church also has two kids. He does not know where one is and the other doesn't like him or talk. He is a challenge to be around. But we are aware of all sorts of versions of this. My take is where love is shown consistently, families do well. Ours does great
The most surprising thing to me was the very low rates of disagreement about spouse/partner for atheists. They disagree a lot about other things, but never about spouse/partner, while for multiple other groups (including agnostics and NIP!) that was a high source of disagreement. Very strange! What’s going on?
"There are a couple of findings that I do want to flag, though. One is that evangelical young adults aren’t fighting with their parents that much. In most cases it was 10% or less across the full range of issues"
Wonder how the graphs might turn out differently if the younger generation were defined by how they were raised instead of their current identity. I suspect, and Ryan hinted indirectly, that those evangelicals who had the best childhood experience continued that to the next generation while those who had a less favorable experience defected. The distribution of recollections may reflect those childhood generated shifts more than the religious identities themselves.
I had the same question: Do atheists who were raised as atheists argue with their atheist parents a bunch, or is this atheists who were raised in a religion who now (understandably) have disagreements with their parents over religion?
Evangelical parents likely don't allow their kids to argue with them, and I don't see that change as the kids become adults. Atheist / agnostic parents may have given their kids permission to argue.
Was a question asked: I would like to disagree with my parents directly, but I'm still not allowed even as an adult.
To give one (possibly idiosyncratic) perspective of someone raised Evangelical, it wasn't necessarily that I was not allowed to argue with them, but rather that certain issues were not discussed. Politics and religion were taboo to talk about outside of church. So while I knew what I was "supposed" to believe (pro-life, anti-lgbtq, etc) it is not a conversation that happens at the dinner table. I suspect my parents know that I have changed stances in some ways, but we have an unspoken agreement not to discuss it.
I wonder whether Catholicism’s emphasis on the family helps to explain the higher rates of communication between adults and their parents.
Now, I know that all religions have some encouragement of filial loyalty, and of course all the Judeo-Christian traditions have the commandment to honor your parents. But as someone who was raised mainline Protestant and converted to Catholicism, the centrality of the family in Catholic readings and imagery has been very striking to me. Certainly, the veneration of Mary is a unique feature of Catholicism (*and Orthodoxy, which I am sure had too few respondents in this survey to be able to show data from) that reinforces the idea that you should call your earthly Mama more often.
I agree on that. I have friends who were raised RC who are in their 30's and are parents themselves now. The families have some sort of unspoken expectation that they will attend church together every Sunday. Times when I have attended church with them in the case of their babies baptism I observe the same cluster of parent, adult child and their own children. I'm not sure it's a matter of faith as it is to not rock the family boat. I don't know.
I think there are probably people who would say if you asked them that they're attending church with their kids and their parents so as to not "rock the boat" with their parents, as you say, and might even tell you that they don't actually believe what the Church has to say. But their behavior is telling us something about what they do truly believe: they believe that it is a good thing to get along well with their parents, and for their children to have a good relationship with their grandparents. They believe that families should spend time together so strongly that they might be attending a Mass that they "don't believe" in, just so everybody can get more family togetherness time. So there's some deep belief about the importance of family that stuck, regardless of what they intellectually think about transubstantiation or the virgin birth.
Agree
Brave to dive into this topic. My wife and I are faithful church-goers. We raised two sons in the church. Neither attends and nor do their wives and kids. But we communicate constantly, in-person whenever practical because we live far apart. No drama, lots of love and fun.
A friend from our church also has two kids. He does not know where one is and the other doesn't like him or talk. He is a challenge to be around. But we are aware of all sorts of versions of this. My take is where love is shown consistently, families do well. Ours does great
The most surprising thing to me was the very low rates of disagreement about spouse/partner for atheists. They disagree a lot about other things, but never about spouse/partner, while for multiple other groups (including agnostics and NIP!) that was a high source of disagreement. Very strange! What’s going on?