Christian motherhood is reflected in fertility patterns, household life, religious education, and the way children describe their relationships with their mothers. In the United States, Christians reported an average completed fertility rate of 2.2 children, compared with 1.8 among religiously unaffiliated adults. The figures below bring together U.S. survey findings, global household estimates, and historical or projected analyses from the named sources.
Contents
- Fertility and family life in the United States
- How Christian parents educate children
- Age and household context
- Mothers and religious identity
- Childhood upbringing and adult identity
- Christian families around the world
- What teens say about their mothers
Fertility and family life in the United States
The Pew Research Center’s Religion & parenthood 2025 reports a completed fertility rate of 2.2 children per Christian respondent. That is 0.4 children higher than the 1.8-child rate reported by religiously unaffiliated adults. Adults in non-Christian religions also had a completed fertility rate of 1.8 children in the comparison cited by the report.
Among U.S. adults ages 40 to 59, Christians reported having 2.2 children on average. The corresponding average was 2.0 children among Jewish Americans and 1.8 among religiously unaffiliated adults. These are averages for the specified age group, not a prediction of how many children every Christian mother will have.
Living with minor children is a separate measure from completed fertility. In the Religious Landscape Study (RLS), 27% of Christian adults lived with a child under 18 at home. The share was 29% among religiously unaffiliated adults and 31% among adults in non-Christian religions. Put another way, the Christian share was 2 percentage points lower than the unaffiliated share and 4 points lower than the non-Christian-religion share.
Across the United States, 28% of adults overall were parents or guardians of at least one child under 18 living with them. The Pew Research Center’s figures describe household status at the time of measurement, so they should not be treated as a complete count of all parents or all children.
How Christian parents educate children
Among Christian parents or guardians with minor children at home, 58% prayed or read scripture with their children, according to the Pew Research Center’s Religion & parenthood 2025. Another 48% sent a child to a religious education program, while 22% homeschooled or sent a child to a private religious school instead of public school.
Overall, 70% of Christian parents engaged in at least one of those three forms of religious child-rearing. The combined measure is useful because the practices overlap: one parent may pray or read scripture, use religious education, and choose homeschooling or private religious schooling.
For comparison, among all parents of minor children at home, 40% said they prayed or read scripture with at least one child. About one-third sent their children to a religious education program, and 17% chose homeschooling or private religious schooling. The Christian-parent figures were therefore 18 percentage points higher for prayer or scripture reading and 5 points higher for homeschooling or private religious schooling; the religious-education comparison is reported as “about one-third,” rather than an exact percentage.
Highly religious parents reported still higher participation: 81% prayed or read scripture with their children, 66% sent them to a religious education program, and 29% homeschooled or used a private religious school. In total, 89% of highly religious parents did at least one of the three practices.
| Parenting practice | Christian parents | All parents | Highly religious parents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pray or read scripture with children | 58% | 40% | 81% |
| Send a child to religious education | 48% | About one-third | 66% |
| Homeschool or use private religious school | 22% | 17% | 29% |
| Do at least one listed practice | 70% | Not supplied | 89% |
The Pew Research Center also reports the same Christian-parent practice rates for Christians with a child under 18 at home: 58% prayed or read scripture with a child, 48% used a religious education program, and 22% homeschooled or used a private religious school. Across all Christian parents, 70% did at least one of the three.
Age and household context
The Religion & parenthood 2025 analysis identifies ages 25 to 54 as the child-rearing years it highlights. Among Christian adults, 42% were in that age range. The share was 60% among religiously unaffiliated adults and 56% among adults in other religions.
These age distributions help explain why the percentage of adults living with minor children does not track directly with completed fertility. A religious group can have a higher average number of children among older adults while having a smaller share of adults currently in the child-rearing age range or currently living with minor children.
The household context also includes single-parent families. In the Pew Research Center’s Projecting U.S. religious groups’ population shares by 2070 analysis, about one-quarter of children under 18 lived in single-parent households. Those households were overwhelmingly headed by mothers. This finding concerns U.S. children and household structure in the analysis period; it is not a measure of the religious identity of every single mother.
Mothers and religious identity
The same Pew Research Center projection and transmission analysis estimated that about 85% of teens with a religious identity had the same religious identity as their mother. About 15% did not share their mother’s identity in that analysis. The result describes religious transmission between mothers and teens in the United States, not a guarantee that a mother’s identity will determine her child’s identity.
An earlier Pew Research Center analysis, How U.S. religious composition has changed in recent decades, found that more than 8 in 10 teens of Christian mothers were Christian. In that survey, 17% of Christian mothers’ teens identified as atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular,” and less than 1% identified with another religious group.
The comparison with unaffiliated mothers was also notable: 88% of teens with unaffiliated mothers were unaffiliated themselves, 11% identified as Christian, and 1% identified with a non-Christian religion. These percentages describe the cited survey’s categories and period, rather than current results from a new survey.
Childhood upbringing and adult identity
Pew Research Center’s Links between childhood religious upbringing and current religious identity shows how the religious identities of parents can be associated with later adult identity. Among people raised exclusively by Protestant parents, 80% later identified as Protestant. Among people raised by a single Protestant parent, 75% identified as Protestant.
When someone was raised by a Protestant and an unaffiliated parent, 56% later identified as Protestant and 34% as unaffiliated. The parental combination therefore corresponded with more than one common adult outcome in the cited analysis.
The Catholic figures varied by parental pairing. Among people raised exclusively by Catholic parents, 62% identified as Catholic. The share was 58% among those raised by a single Catholic parent, 38% among those raised by a Catholic mother and Protestant father, and 14% among those raised by a Catholic father and Protestant mother.
The mother-specific pairing figures should be read alongside the broader upbringing results. They measure the religious identity reported later in life for people with particular parental backgrounds; they do not measure the quality of family relationships or the effectiveness of a particular parenting approach.
Christian families around the world
The Pew Research Center’s The Changing Global Religious Landscape estimated 223 million births to Christian mothers worldwide between 2010 and 2015. During the same period, the global Christian population had a natural increase of 116 million, alongside about 107 million Christian deaths. In sub-Saharan Africa, Christians had 64 million more births than deaths between 2010 and 2015.
In a 2015 estimate, Christians made up 31% of Earth’s 7.3 billion people, according to the Pew Research Center’s Christians remain world’s largest religious group. These are global estimates for the named period, not a current population count.
Household size varies substantially by region. The Pew Research Center’s Global household patterns by religion reported an average Christian household size of 4.5 people worldwide, compared with 5.1 people for non-Christians. Christian households averaged 3.4 people in North America, 3.1 in Europe, and 6.0 in sub-Saharan Africa. Christian households in Gambia averaged 10.3 people, while Denmark and Sweden had the smallest Christian households among countries in the study, at 2.6 people on average.
| Christian household setting | Share or average reported |
|---|---|
| Two-parent family with minor children, worldwide | 34% |
| Extended family, worldwide | 29% |
| Living alone, worldwide | 7% |
| Couple without other family members, worldwide | 11% |
| Single-parent household, worldwide | 6% |
| Average household size, worldwide | 4.5 people |
The same study found that 43% of Christians in North America lived in households that were either extended-family households or two-parent families with minor children. The combined share was 49% in Europe. In Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East-North Africa region, Christians overwhelmingly lived in extended or two-parent families, with combined shares above 70% in each region.
Globally, Christians were more likely than non-Christians to live alone, at 7% versus 3%. They were also more likely to live as couples without other family members, at 11% versus 7%, and in single-parent households, at 6% versus 3%. Christians were the largest religious group in 12 of the 15 countries with the smallest households in the study.
What teens say about their mothers
The Barna Group’s 2018 study, The Powerful Influence of Moms in Christians’ Households, asked practicing Christian teens about everyday life and support. Eighty-five percent ate meals with their mothers, compared with 81% who watched TV or movies with them. Seventy percent talked about God with their mothers, and 63% reported confrontations with mothers as the principal housemate.
Communication also featured prominently. Sixty-nine percent said texting was primarily with their mothers, compared with 73% for friendships. For calling, the corresponding figures were 61% with mothers and 71% with friendships.
Practicing Christian teens also described specific kinds of support from mothers:
- 78% went to their mothers for advice.
- 75% went to their mothers for encouragement.
- 72% went to their mothers for sympathy.
- 68% of Gen Z respondents said their mother was there for them in their last personal crisis.
The Barna study measured mothers’ role in faith conversations as well. Mothers were the foremost prayer partners for 63% of practicing Christian teens. They were the main source of conversations about the Bible for 71%, conversations about God for 70%, and faith questions for 72%.
Mothers also encouraged church attendance for 79% of practicing Christian teens. They taught children about the Bible for 66%, about God’s forgiveness for 66%, and about religious traditions for 72%. Together, these figures describe mothers as a frequent source of practical support and religious conversation in the 2018 study, while retaining that study’s specific population and measurement period.