A young Brazilian couple with 8 children is expecting twins in March 2022. They’ve been conquering the Internet with their testimonials and photos of family life: In the two weeks since the wife and mother opened her Instagram account, she has already accumulated more than 76,000 followers!
They have a large and happy family, which encourages a healthy reconsideration of several preconceptions about the supposedly “ideal” number of children in our times.
The “ideal” number of children simply does not exist, as Mariana, the mother, says. What does exist is common sense and each couple’s responsibility to follow their own vocation and possibilities.
What the Catholic Church proposes to its faithful is that they have children within a conscious, committed, solid, and loving relationship, blessed by the sacrament of marriage, in which the spouses, remaining open to whatever God wants for them, can engage in sensible natural family planning.
There are couples who have the vocation and possibility to have one or two children; there are others who have the vocation and possibility to have 12 or 14 children; and there are some, with or without their own biological children, who have the vocation and possibility to adopt children.
Mariana and Carlos Arasaki, both 36 years old and married for 10 years, are from São Paulo, Brazil. They say they’d always dreamed of having children, with their ideal being a big family.
Their dream is coming true: they already have 10 children, the two newest being twins João Pio and Josemaria, due in March, 2022. The other eight include six girls and two boys.
Mariana listed the names and ages of the children in a post on Instagram:
The children. Each one is worth the universe and they enjoy the presence of their siblings a lot, from gestation until the day they arrive in this world.
1. Maria Philomena 9 years old
2. Martin 8 years old
3. Maria Clara 7 years old
4. Maria Sophia 6 years old
5. Bernardo 4 years old
6. Margarida Maria 3 years old
7. Maria Madalena 2 years old
8. Stella Maria 10 months old