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This study tests competing explanations for the link between the transition to motherhood and declines in wives' marital satisfaction. Using data from the first and second waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 569), we found that new mothers' marital satisfaction declines could be attributed to reductions in wives' quality time spent with their husbands and to increases in perceptions of unfairness in housework. Family role traditionalization in the wake of the birth of a child did not directly explain marital satisfaction declines but was linked to perceptions of marital unfairness. Attendance at religious worship services did not moderate the association between the transition to motherhood and marital satisfaction changes.

Recent research on conservative Protestantism suggests that religion has reemerged as an important predictor of childrearing attitudes and practices. This research has focused on the distinctive approach toward discipline among conservative Protestant parents. No study, however, has explored the links between conservative Protestantism and positive parental emotion work (physical and verbal expressions of affection). I suggest, paradoxically, that this subculture is characterized both by strict discipline and an unusually warm and expressive style of parent-child interaction. I review parenting advice offered by conservative Protestant leaders, which encourages parents to engage in positive emotion work with their children. I then analyze data from the 1987-1988 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to determine if religious affiliation and theological conservatism are related to positive parental emotion work. I find that parents with conservative theological beliefs are more likely to praise and hug their children than are parents with less conservative theological views. Modest positive net effects of conservative Protestant affiliation are also found.

Family scholarship has generally overlooked the influence that religion may have on paternal involvement. Accordingly, using longitudinal data taken from the National Survey of Families and Households, I examined the influence of religious affiliation and attendance on the involvement of residential fathers in one‐on‐one activities, dinner with their families, and youth activities and found religious effects for each of these three measures. Virtually no evidence was found for a competing hypothesis that these effects are artifacts of a conventional habitus such that the type of men who are more conventional in their patterns of civic engagement are both more religious and more involved with their children. However, civic engagement is positively related to paternal involvement.