The quality of raising children in Brazil has a lot to do with their family life. "Over 19 million children under fourteen live in families whose monthly income is less than half the Brazilian minimum salary- over 40 percent of all children (Jubilee, 1998)." Children that are raised in a family with uneducated parents tend to have a problematical childhood. A child's survival is closely associated with the mother's education (Lam and Daryea, 1999). When a child's mother is not educated the quality of the child is decreased. Not only do uneducated parents affect their children, but they also affect Brazil's fertility (Lam and Daryea, 1999). Uneducated families are the majority of the poverty in Brazil.

Monteiro and Dollinger did research from a slum in Fortaleza, Brazil. They gave ten boys and ten girls a camera and told them to take pictures of portions of their lives. Through the pictures Monteiro and Dollinger came to the conclusion that even though poverty was present in the pictures through living conditions, the main problems in their lives were not the poverty but their family life. One boy took a family picture and left his stepfather out because his stepfather abuses his younger brother. Not all of the children had problems with their parents or their families. "The participants' depictions of their parents extend from fear and disgust, through indifference, to a deeply touching respect (Monteiro and Dolliner, 1998)."