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Cristian Lopez
SOC 445
5-7-21
The effects of religion on family structure
My final paper will focus on the effects of having parents with religious values on
family structure and how that will affect the way their children will be brought up as well
as how values will be taught to them. This is important topic to discuss and research
because in recent years there have started to be more interracial couples and marriages,
many of which have different beliefs, whether it be religion or how they value certain
things. This will be interesting in the next several years to study as we start to see sort of a
melting pot for not only interracial marriage but also the combination of two different
religious beliefs.
My reason for reviewing and researching this topic is because I know that from
personal experience as well as having friends and family who have experienced this that
some families are very strict on who they marry based on religion. On the contrary, other
families are completely open to the fact that their significant other is of another religion.
Based on this, I wanted to dig a little bit deeper on how these differences could affect family
structure and core family values as well. Rather than going around asking questions to
these people I will be gathering information from several different articles and reports on
how family structure and values are affected by different religious beliefs.
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My first broad theme of this paper will be on family cohesion and how the family
relationship is either strengthened or weakened when they are faced with this difference.
My second theme will be on the parenting practices and how based on religion how the
practices differ from each other. My third theme will be on how parents who are
unaffiliated bring religion into their parenting styles.
There has been a lot of research on child development over the years and
attachment styles based on parenting styles, but my research will be focusing on how
different religions and family structure affect a child’s upbringing.
I will be focusing on the three themes I have mentioned before, but not go into the detail of
child development, but rather focus on the different types of influences religious structure
has on children.
Family cohesion has been defined as the emotional bonding that family members
have toward one another. This cohesion can be a positive or negative influence depending
on many factors. One of these factors is the one I will be talking about and that is religion.
Religions can increase and decrease family cohesion based on if the parents have similar
religious views or not. In an article written by Kate Miller-Wilson, she talks about the
positive and negative effects of religious views on family cohesion. She states that being
part of organized faith may offer community and emotional stability to a family, helping the
members support one another in difficult times and giving the parents guidance about their
marriage and parental responsibilities.
I can personally relate to this statement because both of my parents have the same
religious views and my mom always goes to one of the priests when she is having a tough
time with certain things and is in need of some spiritual guidance. My dad who was not as
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religious as my mom growing up went on an all men’s retreat where he was able to find
new meaning to his faith and learn a little bit more about it as well. In turn, this brought
my parents even closer together and set an example for us, their children. This example set
by our parents and them putting us through catholic school up until high school created an
even stronger family cohesion because we were able to understand and respect the values
that they had for us and made us become a closer knit family.
Now how does religion decrease family cohesion? It decreases when there are
conflicting or challenged qualities and values. This happens when parent have different
religious views. According to Wilson, when families have different religious views they may
also have different value, the most common difference being their views on homosexuality.
When there are family memeber with different views and some of the members are
