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Document Summary) Fathering may be best understood as a process through which men demonstrate care and support for their children on a day-to-day basis over time. This contention represents a shift from viewing fathers as primarily breadwinners and disciplinarians (Bernard, 1981; Furstenberg, 1988) to recognizing fathers as active and nurturing participants in routines and activities that constitute daily family life, such as providing their children with emotional support (Alineida, Wethington, & McDonald, 2001; Bronstein, 1988; Lamb, 1987). Furthermore, this emerging perspective of the "new fatherhood" no longer views fathers' work and family roles as occupying separate spheres, but rather these roles are seen as integrating in a complex weave (Almeida & McDonald, 1998; Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1982; Kanter, 1977; Lopata & Pleck, 1983; Moen, 1982; Pitrkowski, 1979). An example of this is the synergy that Barnett (1998) suggests may exist between fathers' work and family roles such that work may enhance the family role for men by allowing them to fulfill their obligations and provide for their families. On the other hand, work may also interfere with fathering to the extent that work stressors disrupt fathering activities. One way to examine this work-family interweave is to study the day-to-day connections between fathers' work and family experiences. In this article we apply an ecological perspective to explore how daily work experiences are differentially associated with fathering experiences at home. Emotional transmission has been defined as "occurring when events or emotions in one family member's immediate daily experience show a consistent predictive relationship to subsequent emotions or behaviors in another family member" (Larson & Almeida, 1999, p. 2). The process of emotional transmission has been extended to examine the conveyance of events and experiences from one setting to another such as work to home ([Almeida, D.M.], Wethington, & Chandler, 1999; Bolger, DeLongis, Kessler, & Wethington, 1989; [Repetti, R.L.], 1994). The term "transmission" implies a certain correspondence in the types of experiences that spill over from one setting to another. For instance, tense interactions with coworkers may carry over to tense interactions with children (Bolger, et al., 1989). Yet many work experiences do not correspond directly to home experiences but may manifest in differing but predictive parenting behaviors. Repetti's (1989) study of air traffic controllers showed how varying types of job stressors differentially affect the father-child relationship. For example, fathers' work overload resulted in behavioral and emotional withdrawal from children upon arriving home, and interpersonal conflicts with Document View http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=791863001&SrchMod... 2 of 12 7/12/2005 1:29 PM coworkers were related to harsher tones with children at home. While it is reasonable to assume that there is a temporal ordering for most work/family experiences that flows from work to home, this is clearly not always the case. However, an appropriate first step to getting at this temporal process is to show that events co-occur between fathers and their children within a 24-hour period. The present paper highlights the differentiation in work-family spillover by exploring how daily work experiences, such as work cutbacks and work overloads, are associated with different types of fathering behaviors in the home. Full Text (7534 words) Copyright Men's Studies Press Fall 2004 One way to examine the relationship between work roles and family roles for fathers is to study the day-to-day connections of their work and family experiences. The present study applied an ecological perspective to explore how daily work experiences are differentially associated with fathering experiences at home. Data for these analyses were from the National Study of Daily Experiences, which asked fathers to report about engagement with their children on workdays, including quantity of time spent with children and whether or not fathers provided their children with emotional support or were involved in a stressful event with their children on those same diary days. Fathers also reported on the number of hours spent in paid employment each day and whether or not they experienced a cutback in their work productivity or were overloaded with demands and deadlines at work. Results from a series of Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) showed that fathers were more likely to report providing emotional support to their children on days they also reported overloads at work and, on days fathers reported cutting back on work, they were also more likely to report providing their children with emotional support or report being involved in a stressful event with their children. The nature of the job for fathers was also examined to identify factors that may moderate the relationship between work and home experiences. The association between work hours and time spent with children was shown to be moderated by the degree of decision latitude fathers experienced in the work setting.