I strongly believe the way our parents raised us is a product of how they were raised. The cycle perpetuates itself through each subsequent generation. The way to counter it is to take a deep hard look at the pattern, the effect it's had on you, and learning how to turn it around. Not easy. The only way to let go of what happened to us is to find enough peace and understanding in our own hearts. Waiting for others to change gives them power over us.

I believe my parents lack of parenting skills had to do with their own dysfunctional families than religion. My father was an only child of two violent alcoholics, while my mother was the middle daughter of an emotionally absent mother and a father who died when she was a teenager. After her father's death her mother married a pedophile. In the mean time my mother married a physically abusive man just to get out of the house (not my father).

My childhood was a horror show with the majority of my bullying coming from my own sister. While this was happening my father hid in his bedroom away from everyone while my mother favored my three brothers over the two daughters that she had.

You don't need religion to not have a safe place to go.

I have a friend who says we're all products of unskilled labor.

The concept of child as a "poison container" for the parent's self-loathing and insecurity is probably apropos. Damaged people project their needs onto their children and, often, demand that the child nurture them rather than the inverse.

One has to work very hard indeed to break this unvirtuous cycle.

I think there would be several factors involved. Social opinion, religion, financial status, behaviorial traits inherited, and more. I’d say both, to answer the question.