A Pew research study says that families have much in common when it comes to values about parenting.
According to the website the findings “are based on a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 29-May 27 among 3,243 adults, including 815 parents, who are part of Pew Research’s new American Trends Panel, a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults surveyed online and by mail.”
The study isolated values such as responsibility, hard work, obedience, being responsible, helping others, curiosity, and more.
What the study reveals upon closer examination however, is that parenting takes an entirely different turn when it comes to faith. As a value, it scored relatively high [although only 31% of parents say the teaching of religious faith is one of the most important values to teach children, it ranked third against the top two–Hard Work (44%) and Being Responsible (54%)].
Looking more closely however, the value of faith ranks close to the bottom when factored for ‘net importance’ i.e. how it stacks up against the other values overall.
So, compared to other values, faith scores only higher than curiosity among the twelve values.
One can play with these figures of course, and for those of us for whom religious education is important, we can certainly salve ourselves by saying that after all, having faith includes so many other values….
But we know better. Faith as a value, as something we aspire to, as something that we strive for……..is in crisis, and has been for some time.
In a recent conversation with an Education Director at a very large Reform synagogue, she bemoaned the fact that many of her teen-aged students, enrolled in private schools, tell her that “since they are doing volunteer work with their schools they are fulfilling the mitzvah (commandment) of ‘Tikkun Olam” (Repairing the World through Service), and that they don’t really need to be at the synagogue anymore.
Ouch.