We Are the Millennial Parents of Gen Alpha Kids

Today I get to spend the day with some of the team from Fuller Youth Institute working on newer research related to Gen Alpha kids.1 2

During our time, I’ll share a snapshot of how I see the parenting experience for us: the millennial parents of Gen Alpha kids. This is not research, but rather my sense of where we’re at when it comes to practicing faith with them, drawn on time in person at workshops, FAQs I get, and the stories you’ve shared with me over the years.

After gathering my ideas, I did one final, very-official confirmation: I asked you on Insta and compared them to your DMs (snippets of which are in grey). Here’s some of what I’m sharing about us, and I’d love to hear what you might add or nuance from the list once you’ve read it.

Our kids are informed, and we as parents really want to help them process all they hear about alongside their faith.

“Maybe it’s just my kids and our family culture and where we live, but I feel like my gen a kids and their friends are so much more aware of news / politics than I was at their age. They are INFORMED, and it’s forming their faith questions.”

And at the same time…this reality can feel overwhelming.

“They have access to more information/misinformation than we ever did! The algorithm is one heck of a beast to battle against!”

“The culture has started putting so much onto them at younger and younger ages. Content flying at them from all directions (tv, movies, music, games, apps, youth sports culture, kids at school, the list goes on). And it’s so hard for them to sort out the noise.”

We feel pressured by the pace of life, we feel crunched for energy to do things, even things that matter to us. Sometimes that leaves us feeling like we have good intentions for faith, but little else.

“[I hope the researchers know] how hard it is to find time to do faith formation. As a parent I have the best intentions and training (I have a degree in Christian ed)…but I’m so exhausted that I struggle to find the energy and time to actually talk faith with my kids.”

I think this also has to do with how much of our time and energy is already pre-committed to other things, even good things. Without meaning to, our days are already nearly full-up, and sometimes it feels like faith has to fit into the cracks.

In every single workshop I do, I’m asked about engaging neurodiverse kiddos in faith, both by families and church leaders. On the whole, the resources and models we have just don’t fit for kiddos whose brains work in certain ways while the environment expects something else from them.

I think it’s also notable that more midlife moms are getting their ADHD diagnosed. So families are learning new things about each member’s unique makeup; it’s not just parents learning about their children.

• 43% of women received their first ADHD diagnosis between the ages of 41 and 50.3.3

• The percentage of women newly diagnosed with ADHD between 23–29 and 30–49 years of age nearly doubled from 2020 to 2022.4

A cultural message blares out that good parents learn from experts in order to do, well, everything right. This pressurized expectation can have the effect of making social media a responsibility we have.

When we say “[Expert of choice] was talking about…” on the sidelines of the game, we demonstrate that we are committed to learning and doing all the parenting things the very best ways. After all, even credentialed experts are to some degree influencers, and social media is a main place you’re supposed to learn from them.

“The amount of information for parenting - especially “Christian” parenting is overwhelming and I think social media makes it sneakily legalistic (do x for z results).”

We see pluralism as a feature, not a bug, of the world our kids live in. We want a distinct faith, yes, but we want one that respects other people and faith. We have no interest or intention of giving our kids an apologetic against others.

Plus, the Bible is constantly asking and offering answers to the question: which gods do you trust, and what are they like? That question makes sense in gen alpha’s world, and we parents see an opportunity to help faith feel more relevant as we say: “For me, kiddo, it’s Jesus, uniquely and specifically, and here’s why.” (But even as we do, we often say. “And it’s ok that you’re not sure that’s for you. I’m here to help. Take your time.”)

When it comes to faith, like many other complex topics, parents don’t want tidy answers for their kids. Instead, they want faith to be presented to kids as something that holds complexity and nuance.

One way this plays out? Parents are working to make their big questions safe to ask.

“I want my kids to know that ALL questions are welcome even if it feels like the thought wouldn’t be “allowed”.”

“These kids expect to be able to be authentic and intellectually honest. And they flourish when treated with respect!”

At the same time…we do sometimes miss the ease of the centralized faith resources and media of our own childhood. We’d love to just be able to buy the popular product and not worry about what it would tell our kids about God or themselves.

Everywhere I go I’m asked about navigating family and close friends who are not aligned on faith topics. You know the phrase “In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity”? For many parents, it feels like charity has flown out the window and as for the essential/non-essential question, it’s murky.

Beyond the polarizing issues, many of us have experienced relational loss in the past decade, and it’s changed what it feels like to be raising kids to get to know Jesus. We still desire relationships and family—both literally and via faith communities. But finding it? That’s hard. Now here’s one thing that can make it harder:

We have fair concerns and critiques about church, but we also want relationships for our kids that are generally formed by…being part of a church.

Attendance frequency has been declining for some time5, but really dropped during the pandemic, as has largely not changed since. One effect this has is that kids have fewer friendships or intergenerational relationships with other people of faith. They simply don’t have the opportunity to foster them; it takes reps over time.

“We need a model that is not the 90s youth group midweek model but feels more like extended family with aunts and uncles and grandparents included.”

Churches are not the only places kids can be cared for by other adults who love Jesus, certainly. But ideally, they can be one of them. Still, many parents feel caught between wanting that for their kids but feeling wary of the church, while others simply aren’t attending often enough for it to make a meaningful relational impact (to point #2 on time, but also, because of the last thing I want to name.)

The years 2016, 2020 and 2024 were each earthquakes that shook millennial parents and left the landscape of raising Gen Alpha kids in faith changed.

“For us, our faith often is practiced outside / away from church because of the terrible stigma that has come from being “Christian”. The way that Christian Nationalism has changed what being a Christian looks like breaks my heart. We spend a lot of time talking about the way Jesus lived, and who Jesus loved (and told us to love - everyone). Walking into church is hard - knowing so, so many of those who attend are pro-Trump, pro-ICE and anti living the way Jesus has shown us.”

“[Gen alpha lives] in a world that has always equated christian faith = nationalist right wing politics. And that makes it difficult to find a traditional corporate church space we can trust.”

As millennial parents, we’ve experienced a variety of cultural, technological, and social shifts over our lives. Some are smaller and some are seismic.

Meanwhile our alpha kids just live in new normals that have always been. We have memories of a world we can’t access or recreate, from relational support, to a certain kind of church life, to land lines, to just…experiencing boredom. (90s summer is a Thing for a reason.) But we were also 90s youth group kids. And that subculture was not necessarily all positive, leaving us pining to re-create it for our young or soon-to-be-teens.

Still, I have one clear hope in all of this, my answer to the question: Which gods do I trust, and what are they like? I trust Jesus, who really loves my children, and me, and this world. I really do. I hear how cheesy and Sunday-schooly that might sound, but I mean it. I trust Jesus who comes right up close to us. Jesus who suffered and died. Jesus who lives, and so however complicated or painful things are, however reasonable despair might seem, we are, indeed, loved and not alone.

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