The Christian view of family is many different things because there are all kinds of Christians. In fact, the views of family probably vary more widely amongst Christians than they do amongst atheists, secular humanists and naturalists :-) That being the case, it’s really pretty silly to carve out separate categories for the latter.
I think you can divide people on many different dimensions of views on the family. There are those who believe in an authoritarian model and those who believe in a more humanistic approach to child-rearing. These differences occur in all religions.
Another scale is looking at views of family with respect to their views of their holy book. Some folks have very strict and out-of-the-mainstream views about the role of women and children in the family. Some believe that women should stay at home and not interact with society, or interact as little as possible.
Abortion is an issue that is commonly used to differentiate between different people’s views of family. That seems like a fairly simple issue: either you are for it or agin it, whatever it is (it changes depending on your views). Folks who believe in a woman’s right to choose tend to come from humanistic families while those who can’t stand the thought of any pregnancy being ended voluntarily tend to come from more authoritarian families, except for Catholics (and others, no doubt), who come down on opposite ends of these scales depending on which measure we are using.
The problem with making any generalization in these areas is that there is so much variation that the extremes really don’t tell us much.
I think that as you grow older, you meet more people and talk to people with more widely varying views, except if you stay in one community all your life. It’s easier to be intolerant of others if you never meet them or learn anything about them. Since there is so much variation in people’s views, I think making any kind of generalization, as I have done here, is pretty audacious and deserves to get shot down.
I pretty much think this is a nonsense topic, where we who like to pontificate can do so. But it’s just palaver. Don’t take it seriously. Unless you’re a sociologist who studies religious views amongst families, you’re probably pretty ignorant about this. As I am.