Catholic couple with 12 children shows routine to followers – 10/01/2024 – Equilíbrio

Contrary to low birth rates in Brazil and around the world, some groups of Catholic couples are having more children. They say they do not use contraceptives, as determined by the Catholic Church, forming so-called large families.

A family that has been successful on social media is that of Mariana and Carlos Arasaki. They already have 1.3 million followers on Instagram, including their mother and father’s accounts, and more than 500 thousand on TikTok.

The couple had their first daughter at age 26. Today, at 39, they are parents of 12 children: eight girls and four boys, the last two being twins. Per month, 96 liters of milk and 40 kg of meat are consumed. Eight of the children are of school age and attend private school. After family breakfast, the parents take them to school, each driving a seven-seater car.

Mariana and Carlos met in the youth group at the parish they still attend and, in 2011, they got married. The couple states that they do not avoid pregnancy in order to fully fulfill the promise they made on their wedding day: to receive and educate in the faith all the children that God sends them.

“We are completely open to life [ideia de que a possibilidade de uma gravidez não deve ser barrada por meios artificiais]. We never use contraception. Openness to life is up to God and the couple. It doesn’t mean that everyone will have 12 children”, says Mariana, who also comes from a large family, with six brothers and 19 nephews. Carlos is an only child.

Dom Bruno Elizeu Versari, president of the Episcopal Pastoral Commission for Life and Family of the CNBB (National Conference of Bishops of Brazil), explains that, although it is often not possible to link couples to specific groups, in the last decade large families have grew into two movements within the Catholic Church.

In the Communities of Life and Covenant, associations recognized by the Church in which lay people engage in community life and to announce the Gospel, and in the Neocatechumenate, a movement that rescues the beginning of Christianity, as the first Christians lived.

Mariana participates in the Apostolate of Prayer, which seeks to incorporate traditional Catholic prayers into the daily lives of its members, and Carlos from Opus Dei, an organization that has as its axis the notion of sanctification of family, work and prayer — both conservative movements for faithfully following the doctrine, says the coordinator of the religion, economics and politics studies center at UFSCar (Federal University of São Carlos), André Ricardo de Souza.

On social media

Mariana and Carlos Arasaki say that it was only at the end of 2021, already in the penultimate pregnancy, that they decided to expose the family’s daily life on social media, after encouragement from Mariana’s sister, who noticed people’s curiosity about the family’s daily life. family and agreed to manage the account.

They say that one of the most frequently asked questions from followers is how they support themselves financially. “We have to make choices, but with each child we work harder and pray for divine providence. I really believe that each child comes with a loaf of bread under their arm”, says Mariana.

Carlos is a partner in a finance company that works with banking products, such as consortiums and lines of credit. Until her fifth child, Mariana worked in the administrative area of ​​an engineering company, something she stopped doing to dedicate herself to her children.

Today, as an influencer, she can contribute up to 50% to the family budget depending on the month, through contracts with brands, partnerships, exchanges and courses on motherhood.

The family has five employees: the one who takes care of the house, two nannies during the week, and two others on the weekends.

For educator Cíntia Senna, from Dsop financial education, planning and adopting strategies are necessary to keep the budget on track, such as wholesale purchases, requesting discounts or grants at schools and reusing items such as clothes, toys and school supplies. But depending on family income, says Senna, these adaptations will not be enough.

Not all families have a support network

Members of the Espaço Vida Catholic Community, Camila Moitinho, 40, and her husband, Gideon Moitinho, 41, have four children. She works part-time as a social worker and he teaches music at three schools with flexible hours.

With this schedule, they say they can share childcare and household chores. The couple lives far from their families and, rarely, when they are unable to take turns, they request help from relatives or friends from church to be with the children for a while.

“I consider motherhood a mission. Of course it’s a lot of work, but everything is shared. As children grow, they start to contribute by keeping their own things organized. We need a routine to make it work”, says Camila.

For Lorena Hakak, professor at FGV RI, president of the Society for Family and Gender Economics and columnist for Sheetthe way in which care is divided depends on each family’s arrangement and usually varies between hiring someone to look after the children, support from family members or full-time schooling.

“But what we observed is that women are still the main caregivers, taking on a greater workload. Many end up giving up their career and may even resume it years later, but with less experience and earning less.”

Among the possible scenarios so that women do not have to leave their careers if they so wish, says Hakak, are more flexible working hours, the provision of more daycare centers and full-time schools, with extended hours and of good quality, in addition to the approval of greater paternity leave, which would generate a change in the mentality of society, which the father also takes care of.

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