Fewer Children, Later Motherhood, Fewer Weddings: What the Church Needs to Hear From Brazil

The news

On September 29, Brazil’s long-running TV newsmagazine Globo Repórter aired a feature on grandmothers, mothers, and daughters to show how life has changed for Brazilian women: more years of schooling, delayed motherhood, fewer children, fewer marriages, and more people living alone or with their parents. One woman interviewed married at 17; her daughter focused on her career and had her first child at 34.

The numbers behind the story come from IBGE, Brazil’s national statistics agency. According to the 2022 Census, the fertility rate fell from 6.28 children per woman in 1960 to 1.55 in 2022, the lowest on record. Since 2010, Brazil has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, as Agência Brasil reported.

If you live in the United States, this will sound familiar. What follows is my opinion, as a husband, a father, and someone who walks alongside couples in crisis.

First: this is not a time for nostalgia

Every time a story like this comes out, someone at church says “things were better in the old days.” I understand the feeling, but I disagree with the diagnosis.

The old days had plenty of pain hidden behind closed doors, too. Teen marriages driven by pressure, women without choices, husbands who ruled but did not love, big families with empty hearts. Social pressure was never the same thing as covenant. Many people stayed married out of fear of what others would say, not out of love for God and for their spouse.

So I will not use this report to attack the woman who studied, earned a doctorate, or built a career. The Bible has no problem with that. The woman of noble character in Proverbs 31 does business and works with her own hands:

“She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.” (Proverbs 31:16, NIV)

And the chapter ends by telling us to honor her publicly: “Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate” (Proverbs 31:31, NIV). Education and work are not the enemies of the family. The enemy is something else.

The real question is not “career or kids”

One line in the report caught my attention. A woman said the essential thing was to pursue independence, and not to believe that “a woman was made to marry and have children.” I agree with half of that.

I agree that no one should marry out of obligation. But somewhere along the way, I think our generation started to see marriage as a threat to freedom rather than a place to grow. As if saying “yes” to someone meant losing yourself.

Scripture shows something different:

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, NIV)

A good marriage does not shrink anyone. It multiplies. And children are not a gap on a résumé. “Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him” (Psalm 127:3, NIV). That does not mean every couple must have many children, or that couples without children are worth less. Some couples dreamed of children and could not have them, and that grief deserves respect, not a sermon. It simply means we need to stop talking about children as a burden and start talking about them as a gift again.

What almost no one says: the men

Now I want to talk to the men, because I think this part got left out of the conversation.

Many women are not delaying marriage and children only because of their careers. They delay because they cannot find a man they can trust. A man who disappears when things get hard, who wants the benefits of marriage without the responsibilities, who treats his wife like an employee and the kids like her problem.

I can say this because I used to be the problem in my own marriage. It was not Vanessa Lima’s career that almost destroyed our home. It was me. What rebuilt it was God working in me and Vanessa giving God a chance. Trust came back brick by brick.

So when I see the curve of births and weddings going down, I do not think about women first. I think about us, men. God’s command is clear:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:25, NIV)

Christ did not love the church from a distance. He gave himself up. No woman is afraid to marry a man who gives himself like that. The fear is marrying a man who only wants to receive.

What I would tell a couple today

If you are young and thinking about marriage, or already married and unsure about children, here are three pastoral suggestions, not rules:

1. Talk about it before time decides for you. Many couples never truly discuss children. One wants them, the other keeps postponing, and the years go by. Sit down, pray, and be honest about your fears and your dreams. For health or fertility questions, see a doctor; I am speaking to the heart here.

2. Build the kind of marriage you would want your children to grow up in. The greatest gift you can give a child is not a beautifully decorated nursery. It is a mother and father who love and respect each other at home.

3. Put Christ at the center before any plan. Career, children, a home of your own, all of these are good. But none of them can hold a marriage together alone. What holds it is a covenant with God in the middle.

To the Church

The Church does not need to shout at the numbers. It needs to raise trustworthy men, welcome women without judging them, and show marriages that, up close, make people want to imitate them. People will not start wanting families again because of a sermon about statistics. They will want it when they see a family that is a joy to be part of.

If your marriage feels far from that today, it can change. Not by magic, but by walking a path, one day at a time, with Christ at the center. Vanessa and I share that journey every week on our YouTube channel and Instagram, and we would love to walk it with you.