A recent Pew Poll and study among 18-25 year-old adults found that parenting is more important than marriage. The majority of Millennials, (generally those born between 1982 and 1995) about 52%, said being a good parent is “one of the most important things” in life. About 30% said the same about having a successful marriage. This Pew Poll points out that there is a 22 percentage point gap in the way Millennials value parenthood over marriage.
Sometimes called “Generation Y”, Millennials differed from their Generation X counterparts:
When this same question was posed to 18- to 29-year-olds in 1997, the gap was just 7 percentage points. Back then, 42% of the members of what is known as Generation X said being a good parent was one of the most important things in life, while 35% said the same about having a successful marriage.
What does this mean?
In churches, we often hear the warning giving to youth off to college, “You’ll lose your faith in college.” All those competing ideas about religion, philosophy, and knowledge working against everything a church has built up! I once had an old timer in my home church tell me right before I left for seminary, “Be careful, you can lose your faith in seminary!” Is there something about education and youth that are dangerous? Sordid stories of youth going wild in early adulthood often lead people to think that young people want nothing to do with church, God, religion or faith.
The Baby Boomer generation is often thought as the generation that worked hard, help get us where we are, and was the backbone of the 20th century. Now that Baby Boomers are retiring, many have asked the question, “Who will take their place?” Generation X? No.
