Viewing parenthood as sacred might boost happiness, depending on how parents imagine God

A new study published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion suggests that viewing parenthood as a sacred duty is linked to higher levels of happiness and satisfaction among adults in the United States. This relationship depends heavily on how a person visualizes God as a relational figure.

Raising children routinely involves psychological, physical, and financial costs that can drain adults. Sociologists and psychologists regularly document that the stresses of child-rearing can associate with higher rates of depression and lower physical health. At the same time, the experience of raising children can impart a profound sense of meaning and purpose to daily life. Researchers have noted that how people interpret their responsibilities as parents plays a major part in whether they experience joy or distress.

One specific psychological concept that influences this subjective experience is called sanctification. In the social sciences, sanctification is the process of assigning divine character and significance to an ordinary aspect of life. This can be theistic, where a person views their circumstances as a direct manifestation of God. It can also be non-theistic, where someone perceives a basic human role, such as parenting, as possessing sacred or holy qualities without explicitly attributing them to a specific deity. By treating an everyday task as sacred, individuals often invest more energy into it and report higher levels of satisfaction.

Sociologists Laura Upenieks and Christopher G. Ellison wanted to explore how viewing the parenting role as sacred interacts with personal beliefs about the divine entity itself. Upenieks, a researcher at Baylor University, and Ellison, a researcher at the University of Texas at San Antonio, focused their attention on what sociologists call images of God. These images represent how people internally visualize a divine figure and serve as an internal working model for how they relate to the world.

Scholars generally categorize American views of God into four main types. These types are based on whether the deity is perceived as actively engaged in earthly affairs and whether the deity is seen as judgmental. The first type is the authoritative God, who is seen as both highly active in the world and highly judgmental of human behavior. The second is the benevolent God, who is engaged but forgiving and non-judgmental.

The third type consists of the critical God, visualized as disengaged from daily human life but quick to judge human failings. Finally, the distant God is viewed as neither engaged in the world nor concerned with judging it. The researchers suspected that the supposed mental health benefits of seeing parenthood as a sacred calling might change depending on which of these four God images a parent holds.

To test this idea, Upenieks and Ellison analyzed information from the 2014 Baylor Religion Survey. This national poll collected responses from adults across the United States regarding their behaviors, attitudes, and religious convictions. The researchers focused their analysis on a specific sample of 1,078 individuals who were parents and had provided answers about their overall well-being.

The survey respondents were asked to rate their general happiness on a basic scale, as well as their agreement with the statement that they are satisfied with their role as a parent. To measure non-theistic sanctification, the survey included a question asking participants to rate their agreement with the simple statement that their role as a parent is holy and sacred.

To capture internal images of God, the survey asked respondents a series of descriptive questions. Participants indicated if they thought God was personally involved in their lives, actively concerned with their well-being, or angered by human sins. Through these answers, the researchers categorized each parent into one of the four primary God images.

The statistical models were built to account for a variety of potentially influencing features, including age, education, race, marital status, and frequency of typical religious attendance. The analysis revealed a clear overall pattern linking parental sanctification to higher personal well-being. Parents who strongly agreed that their parental role was sacred tended to report higher general happiness. They also reported feeling far more satisfied with their responsibilities as parents.

Imbuing an exhausting life role with spiritual weight appears to help adults weather the negative aspects of child-rearing. This positive association shifted greatly when combined with specific views of the divine. The link between viewing parenting as sacred and experiencing high levels of happiness was most pronounced among parents who held an authoritative God image.

A similar boost in well-being appeared among parents who imagined a benevolent God instead. For these groups, feelings of sacredness combined with an active God yielded the best mental and emotional outcomes. The researchers propose a few psychological reasons for these patterns.

A benevolent God image serves as a constant source of comfort, offering parents a sense of unconditional support when facing the severe demands of raising children. An authoritative God image, while carrying elements of strict judgment, still provides a sense of divine structure and engagement. This worldview aligns well with the daily tasks of disciplining and guiding a child, allowing parents to feel they are acting in harmony with divine expectations.

Conversely, the distant God image seemed to hinder the positive feelings historically associated with sacred parenting. For parents who primarily viewed God as an uninvolved observer, the association between sanctification and parental satisfaction was noticeably weaker. Believing that one’s parental role has ultimate cosmic significance while simultaneously believing that the cosmos is governed by an absent deity appears to create cognitive friction.

If a parent feels their duties are fundamentally holy but cannot turn to an active God for help, they might struggle to find comfort in their faith during difficult periods. The data did not reveal a statistically significant interaction between viewing parenting as sacred and holding a critical God image. The researchers had speculated that a judgmental, absent God would increase distress for parents feeling overwhelmed by a sacred duty, but this specific risk did not materialize in the survey.

The study has a few limitations that influence how the conclusions should be interpreted. The analysis relies on cross-sectional data, meaning all the information was collected at a single moment in time. Because of this design, the researchers cannot state that viewing parenting as sacred directly causes an increase in happiness. It is entirely possible that parents who are already happy are simply more prone to describing their roles in glowing, sacred terms.

The study also relied on single-item survey questions to measure complex ideas like sanctification and happiness, rather than using full diagnostic scales. Additionally, the survey sample was uniquely American, predominantly white, and largely Christian. The concept of God and the nature of religious coping can differ greatly across different cultures and faith traditions. The authors suggest that future studies should track families over many years to observe how these beliefs shift as children mature and household dynamics alter.

The study, “Parental Sanctification, God Images, and Parental Happiness and Satisfaction in the United States,” was authored by Laura Upenieks and Christopher G. Ellison.