One of the primary benefits (and drawbacks) of religion is that it provides a set of packaged values that are straightforward and generally work pretty well for a lot of people. Thousands of years of refinement went into the development of those packages.
They're mostly effective and convenient for a lot of people.
Determining values from first principles is hard, and there are a lot of easy mistakes along the way. You can easily find yourself trapped in nihilism or moral relativity or one of the other common philosophy potholes.
It's kind of like a happy meal vs cooking from scratch. We all know cooking is healthier and cheaper, but sometimes we just don't have time, and there's no guarantee on how it will turn out.
It's a shame they decided to put a bunch of weird stuff in Happy Meals because I think you're right about this.
Not providing guidance to children is at least as bad as providing overly dogmatic guidance.
In terms of the values you cited, such as raising the next generation and contributing to society, these are extremely common values found in a wide spectrum of society and indeed, are heavily emphasized in virtually any education system you care to examine!