And finds most Millennial moms think they’re doing a pretty good job of it.
It’s not news. Parenting — and the nature of families themselves — has changed in important ways over the past few decades.
Finding the best way, and best environment, to raise children remains a hot topic and sometimes a contentious one. A new Pew Research Center report explores the dynamics of American parenting.
About half of parents say they’re doing a very good job raising their kids.
Mothers are more likely to say this than fathers (51 percent vs. 39 percent). And moms in younger generations are particularly likely to give themselves high marks: 57 percent of Millennial moms say they’re doing a very good job, compared with 48 percent of Gen X and 41 percent of Baby Boomer moms, and 43 percent of Millennial dads.
It matters to most parents how others evaluate their parenting skills.
About 93 percent of married or cohabiting parents say it matters a lot that their spouse or partner sees them as a good parent, and 72 percent want their own parents to think they’re doing a good job. Smaller groups care a lot that their friends (52 percent) and people in their community (45 percent) see them as good parents.
Fewer children live in two-parent households.
Of children younger than 18, 69 percent are
living with two parents, down from 87 percent in 1960. Even fewer (62 percent) live with two married parents; 7 percent live with two cohabiting parents. The share of children living in single-parent households has increased threefold, from 9 percent in 1960 to 26 percent in 2014.
Most parents say they can never be too involved in a child’s education, but about 4-in-10 say too much involvement can be a bad thing.
Parents with family incomes of $75,000 or higher are more than twice as likely as parents with incomes below $30,000 to say that too much parental involvement in education could be a bad thing (59 percent vs. 23 percent). Black parents (58 percent) are more likely than white and Hispanic parents (43 percent and 41 percent, respectively) to say they wish they could be doing more when it comes to their child’s education.