Title: The Experience of Unmarried Mothers Raising their Children in Residential Facilities: A
Phenomenological Qualitative Study
Version: 2 Date: 01 Sep 2021
Reviewer's report:
This article addresses an important and interesting topic that has not been explored through other
research studies. But the manuscript would need consistent revision.
Introduction section:
-The introduction section is very long, with many redundant information.
-"An unmarried mother refers to a woman who has given birth to a child through an unwanted
pregnancy": this first sentence is too judgmental, very culturaly codified and not documented
by any bibliographic reference.
-A description of the residential facilities should be added: how many women live in it? Do they
have their own apartment/room? What kind of staff is there to help them? Do they get financial
support? Is there a nursery so that these women can go to work? Are all facilities organised the
same? Etc…
Method section:
- Concerning the participants. The purposive sampling method used should be described: Were
all women from all Korean residential facilities offered to participate? If not, on which criterias
did the authors select the different residential facilities they wanted to include? And how did
they contact the women?
- concerning data collection. How many participants were interviewed twice? Why? Did it bring
any additional interesting data?
Results section:
Results are interesting, but not supported by sufficient participants verbatims, and would need
title reformuation. Consistent reorganization would be needed between the themes because some
themes gather very different and divergent ideas.
Theme 1:
- The title of theme 1 doesn't reflect the authors statements nor the participants verbatim. It would
need to be reformulated. Maybe a title like "child rearing : a life motivation" or "child rearing is
life changing" or "child rearing as an extra motivation to gain economic independance" would
be more appropriate.
- The authors’ statement do not reflect the participant’s first verbatim. The participant 1 seems
to be focusing on other things then proper child rearing like helping the staff.
- "The participants who became mothers without any preparation recognized that the parenting
knowledge they were taught and their time in the facilities helped them to carry out the role of
a mother." A verbatim from a participant should be added to support this statement. And the
reader would need more information on what type of parenting knowledge these women are
taught, and by what sort of professionals?
Theme 2:
- Once again, the title doesn't fit with what is developed in this theme. It would need to be
reformulated. For exemple I would entitle it: "Facing difficulties conciliating mothering with
gaining economic independance alone" or "When conciliating mothering and work becomes
difficult alone".
- "In particular, the participants faced the greatest difficulty when they or their children were sick
and had to be hospitalized. As most participants had no alternatives but to stop their economic
activities and postpone their children’s surgical treatment, they were thoroughly aware that they
had to endure crises in life alone.": this author's statement should be assessed by a participant
verbatim.
-"Meanwhile, daily living in facilities entails limited space and sharing resources with other
residents. Order and distribution are prioritized such that activities such as giving showers to and
feeding their children could not be performed freely. The allocated space was also 'temporary'
and had to be kept clean and free of damage, making living uncomfortable." This author's
reflection does not fit into this theme. Another theme maybe intitled "Facilities that don't always
meet mother's and children needs" should be specifically dedicated to the problems that these
women face in these facilities.
Theme 3:
- Authors should clarify if the sentences they quote (However, they witnessed themselves
being "nervously careless to their children" and "almost pathologically tempered, sharp, and
sensitive") are extracts of participants' verbatim, and if so, they should cite the relevant verbatim
instead.
Theme 4:
- This theme gathers very different ideas. I think the first part would fit in with ideas from theme
2 and Second part could fit in another theme dedicated to problems related to the facilities in
themselves that could be intitled "Facilities that don't always meet mother's and children needs"
Theme 5
This theme is a bit short and only supports one single idea. It could be reintitled "Facilities that
don't always meet mother's and children needs" and gather all the previous ideas that relate to it.
Discussion section:
the discussion is interesting and raises important issues related to these facilities. Nevertheless, it
could maybe benefit from a perspective on facilities for single mothers in other parts of the world:
do such facilities exist in other countries and how do they differ or not from those in korea?
How could these korean facilities benefit from the experience of other similar establishments
in other countries in the world?
This research is well led and brings important finding that would deserve publication, but only
after consistent revision.