De Jesus' had three children: João José, José (aka Zé) Carlos, and Vera Eunice.[17] Through interviews for The Life and Death of Maria de Jesus (see below § Further reading), second eldest Zé and daughter Vera provide vital information about her personality.
In her interview, Vera clearly describes how her mother devoted herself entirely to her dream of becoming a writer, without any help from others. Vera admired her mother's aspiration to create a better life not only for herself but for her children. Although living with de Jesus' could be challenging, Vera stated "There is no one in the world I admire more than her."[18] Vera stresses how the success of her mother's work quickly resulted in the family constantly traveling, attending parties, and living in a large mansion that seemed almost prison-like due to its large size. Constantly praising her mother during the interview, Vera gives full credit to de Jesus for her achievements; according to her, she would never have been able to attend school if it were not for her mother's success.
Vera constantly mentions the danger of living in the favela and how, although she and her siblings were born poor, their mother fought for a better life for them. Violence in the favela made it dangerous for Vera and her brothers to be on the streets with her mother, so most of their time was spent idly, sometimes studying, in their shack waiting for her to return. De Jesus rarely let her children leave their shack, fearing for their safety. Leaving her children alone at night was too dangerous. Vera states: "We didn’t have enough money to buy proper food, but my mother wanted us to stay out of the favela! She disliked not only the favela, but the people who lived in it... my mother gave [my brothers] money to stay away the whole day. They only returned at night, to sleep. Movie tickets ended up costing much of our money for food, but she preferred it that way. She preferred to leave at dawn, with her sack on her shoulders, to walk, walk, walk and to go to bed hungry, rather than to leave us alone in Canindé."[19] "Hunger is the world plague of the favela", Vera stated.[20]
Vera made it clear that there was constantly a man in her mother's life. In her words, de Jesus loved being infatuated and was very sexually-oriented. She stressed how her mother did not fancy the Black men of the favela and how they did not favour her too much either. While she had been called a witch in her hometown, in Canindé she was regarded merely as an eccentric. People there were less in awe of her writing than intimidated by it: "In the favela, they thought that she was crazy, walking with her notebook under her arm. There were people who laughed. The worst ones laughed at her piles of paper, but they stopped when they realized that it was neither a joke nor craziness".[21] When someone upset her, she threatened to write about them in her book. Jealousy of her writing, men, and lifestyle resulted in other faveladas (the female inhabitants of favelas) antagonizing her. However, that did not stop de Jesus from continuing to write about what was going on in the favela.
During the interview, Vera recalls an event specifically showing her mother's love and protection towards her children. She recalled a childhood event in which she was playing on the grass when a man approached her and asked her to help him find something. The two headed down towards a river and soon the man began removing Vera's clothes in an indication that he was about to rape her. De Jesus instinctively felt her daughter was in danger, and soon made her way down to the river, thereby rescuing her daughter and chasing the stranger away.
According to Vera, before the publication of Quarto de despejo her mother became obsessed with Audálio Dantas, her publisher, and was constantly anxious about him sending word about her diary. Soon after the book was released, Vera found herself attending her mother's book signings, wearing new clothes, and traveling across Brazil. All of a sudden, everything Vera, her brothers, and her mother wanted was at their fingertips. Vera said her mother always liked to be the centre of attention, and aspired to become a singer and an actress. In spite of her ambitions, her publisher argued that this would bring her no benefit and insisted she should continue writing books.
Soon after the family switched neighbourhoods from the favela to Santana the children witnessed intense discrimination from their wealthy neighbors. There, the family lived in a large brick-house that they thought of as a prison due to its large size in comparison to their previous home. Neighbourhood kids were not allowed to play with Vera and her brothers as their families considered de Jesus was "marked by the favela".[22]
Despite her mother's fame and fortune, Vera noticed de Jesus was becoming impatient due to her lack of privacy. Before the fame, all de Jesus wanted was to have her writing noticed, but she had started regretting her decisions. Now that money was plentiful (it is estimated she made ₢$2,000 by selling her author's rights, as compared to a 20 cruzeiros income from collecting paper),[11] de Jesus began to spend it for no reason. She had intentions of sending both Vera and Zé Carlos to Italy but soon changed her mind and decided to invest in a small ranch in far-flung Parelheiros where she ended up moving with her children. The family was excited about living in a rural area and Vera saw her mother become hard-working again: growing crops, taking care of the household, and tending to her youngest João as his health grew ill. The family was prevented from getting medical help for him from public health services at the time as they did not have a work card, which was required by the social security agency.
De Jesus' new fame was found to be brief mainly due to the military dictatorship coming into power in 1964 (citation of military dictatorship), which turned people away from socially critical works of literature, such as Quarto de Despejo. Without a propagation of her status to provide income, she eventually was forced to move back to the favela, making the situation even more complicated for her sick son, João.[23]
Eventually, João died of kidney failure only four months after his mother had passed from respiratory failure in 1977.[2] Vera Eunice, who was interviewed in 1994, got married and became a teacher, and at the time of the interview was a nighttime higher education student with plans of becoming an English-language translator. On the other hand, her second oldest, José Carlos was twice divorced, occasionally homeless and an alcoholic, and purportedly as smart, angry and erratic as his mother.
