title: Parental Involvement, Child Temperament, and Parents' Work Hours: Differential Relations for Mothers and Fathers.
abstract: This study examined how child temperament was related to parents' time spent accessible to and interacting with their 2-year-olds. Bivariate analyses indicated that both fathers and mothers spent more time with temperamentally challenging children than easier children on workdays, but fathers spent less time with challenging children than easier children on non-workdays. After accounting for work hours, some associations between temperament and fathers' workday involvement dropped to non-significance. For fathers, work hours also moderated the relation between irregular temperament and workday play. For mothers, work hours moderated the relation between both difficult and irregular temperament and workday interaction. Mothers also spent more time with girls (but not boys) who were temperamentally irregular. Results speak to the influence of child temperament on parenting behavior, and the differential construction of parenting roles as a function of child characteristics and patterns of work.
authors.affiliation: Hiatt School of Psychology, Clark University, 950 Main St., Worcester, MA 01610; gbrown@clarku.edu.
authors.forename: Geoffrey L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Department of Human and Community Development, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1105 W. Nevada, Urbana, IL 61801; brentmcb@illinois.edu.
authors.forename: Brent A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: McBride
authors.affiliation: Department of Human and Community Development, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 904 W. Nevada, Urbana, IL 61801; kbost@illinois.edu.
authors.forename: Kelly K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Bost
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Auburn University, 210 Spidle Hall, Auburn, AL 36849; nnshin@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Nana
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shin
keywords: child sex; fathering; parental involvement; temperament; work hours