Employment status, psychological well-being, social support, and physical discipline practices of single black mothers

We investigated the effects of depressive symptomatology, parental stress, and instrumental support on maternal spanking. Although we found no associa tions between employment status, per se, and the frequency of spanking, bur results show that employment seems to matter for its moderating effects on the relationship between mothers' psychological functioning and their deci sions to use spanking. Significant interaction effects of employment x depr ession and employment x parental stress indicate that employment reduced th e frequency of spanking by mothers with more symptoms of depression and par ental stress. The availability of instrumental support increased the freque ncy of spanking. This may reflect the possibility that mothers in this stud y found the help they receive psychologically costly.