Many US parents have abandoned their childhood religion for themselves, their kids

While most U.S. adults were raised in a religion, an increasing number of Americans abandon their religious upbringing and decline to raise their children in such a manner.

More than 80% of U.S. adults were raised religious, but today, 35% of all Americans have abandoned their religious upbringing, and only 22% of parents say they conduct a very religious household, according to a study from Pew Research. 

Religious associations vary by age: while only 13% of adults over 65 years old say they have no religion, 35% of adults under 30 say the same. 

Just one in two (56%) Americans say they practice the same religion of their childhood. Some have switched religions while others have abandoned the concept altogether. 

Such religious flight often occurs at a relatively young age: 85% of adults who said they changed religions had done so before they were 30 years old, and 46% said they left as teenagers. 

The change from a religion to none begins even earlier, with 53% of religious “nones” saying they left their childhood beliefs before the age of 18, and 36% saying they did so before turning 30. 

As these children become adults, they are choosing to raise their children quite differently from their religious upbringings. 

Less than half of U.S. parents say their children pray at night (46%) or before meals (43%), and only 43% say their kids attend a religious service at least monthly. Only 34% of parents say they are raising their children in a “somewhat religious household,” and only one in four parents say they talk to their children about religion “very often.”  

Whether a child preserves his religious upbringing depends primarily on his “experience,” according to the study. Of adults who said they had a “positive childhood experience,” only 10% have rejected their religious upbringing for no religion. In contrast, 69% of those claiming to have a “negative experience” with their religious upbringing now affiliate as religions nones.  

Religious nones are those who define themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – composing 29% of all U.S. adults, according to Pew’s Religious Landscape Study. 

These adults say they can be moral without religion (78%), they can be spiritual without religion (54%) and they question religious teachings (64%).  

Only 13% of all U.S. adults say they were raised without a religious affiliation, but 26% of these adults say they now follow a religion. This quarter of adults who were raised as nones represents 3% of all U.S. adults.  

Additionally, Americans who abandon their religious roots say they did so because they stopped believing in its teachings (46%), didn’t believe it was important (38%), they gradually fell away (38%) or they opposed religious teachings on social and political issues (34%).  

In contrast, those adults who remain faithful to their childhood religion do so because they believe its teaching (64%), it fulfills spiritual needs (61%), it gives meaning to life (56%) and it offers community (44%). Only 32% of these practicing adults say they do so because of the religion’s teachings on social or political issues. 

Pew’s study combined data from its 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (36,908 adults) with a more recent survey of 8,937 U.S. adults from May 5-11, 2025, on American trends.