Why are parents so superstitious?

Parents and superstitious people are two intersecting but not overlapping sets. Not all parents are superstitious. Not all superstitious people are parents. In truth, kids tend to be more superstitious than their parents.

Parents are people. Some people are superstitious. Some of those superstitious people are parents.

A lot of people are NOT superstitious. A lot of those non-superstitious people are parents.

The parents who are superstitious are superstitious for pretty much the same reasons that anybody is superstitious:

• People sometimes conflate coincidence with causation: I did "A" and "B" happened, therefore A caused B.
• People don't know why things happen so they come up with superstitions to explain the unknown.
• Some superstitions are more a matter of tradition and culture than actually believing that something will or won't happen based on what we do or don't do. We observe the superstition because it is FUN, not because we really believe in it.

Note that what some people call faith or experience, unbelievers can call superstition. A quote from Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) illustrates this when it comes to parents:

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

... substitute the Word "superstitious" for "ignorant" and the point is made.