Culture Stress and Difficulties: Lived Stories of Teenaged Mothers in Macau

Authors

Luis Miguel Dos Santos, Woosong UniversityFollow

Abstract

The traditional Chinese culture influences perspectives toward family, marital status, and living style in Macau SAR, where Eastern cultures meet Western cultures. Although the Western living styles and standards highly influence the daily practices of residents; broken marriage, single parenting, and divorce are considered taboo in the community. The purpose of this study was to understand how teenaged single mothers describe their sources of stress and difficulties in the city. Eight single mothers, who were at different stages in single parenting and broken marriages, were interviewed and asked to share their lived stories. Guided by the Ecological System Theory, analysis of the data indicated that sources of stress and the behaviors of individuals may be highly influenced by surrounding people, environments, and societies. The results of the current study can help social caring providers and policymakers to better understand not only lived experiences of single mothers, but also the social problems, difficulties, and source of stress of the particular groups of people in society.

Keywords

Macau, Divorced, Ecological System Theory, Lived Stories, Narrative Method, Single Parenting, Stress

Author Bio(s)

Luis Miguel Dos Santos is an Assistant Professor, Woosong University, South Korea. Dr. Dos Santos earned his Doctor of Education degree at Northeastern University, Boston, the United States in Education. He has earned three master's degrees in the field of Management at Lasell College, USA; Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at the University of Nottingham, UK; and Government Management at Chinese Culture University, Taiwan. For his MA in Government Management at Chinese Culture University, he has received the perfect GPA score (4.0/4.0). He has published more nearly 50 book chapters, journal articles, and conference proceeding under the SSCI, Scopus, and ESCI database in English, Chinese, and Portuguese languages. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to luismigueldossantos@yahoo.com.

Acknowledgements

Funding: The study was supported by Woosong University Academic Research Funding 2020.

Publication Date

11-14-2020

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2020.3874

Recommended APA Citation

Dos Santos, L. (2020). Culture Stress and Difficulties: Lived Stories of Teenaged Mothers in Macau. The Qualitative Report, 25(11), 3976-3992. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2020.3874

ORCID ID

0000-0002-4799-8838