Mothers and Daughters

Our denominational president, Steve Jones, recently sent pastors and leaders the following observations:

“If you didn’t catch it already, you need to read the lead article in MacLean’s magazine on April 13, 2015. The front cover certainly seeks to be a little cheeky, but the article “God is the Answer” is an eye opener. The article shares the work of a Jewish clinical psychologist, Lisa Miller, who has been studying the close relationship between spirituality or religious values and health, particularly mental health.

She has specifically studied mother-teenage daughter relationships where both share a religious belief. She has discovered that if the shared spirituality reached back into the daughter’s formative years, there was an 80% protective chance of emotional illness among families who are high-risk for depression. She claims that spiritually-connected teens are 40% less likely to abuse alcohol or other substances, 80% less likely to engage in unprotected sex, and 60% less likely to suffer from depression than teens who are not spiritually oriented. She writes “In the long run, we think religiosity will confer a protective effect against all kinds of disorders.”

So, moms, keep in the faith yourself and keep passing it on to your children by your words and your deeds. It can only help. In fact, it seems that it will help.