A study examined mothers' employment situation as an important aspect of daily life that may influence day-to-day changes in parent-child interactions. Thirty-five mother-child dyads, recruited through four work site-based child care centers, were studied for 5 consecutive days. Target children were preschoolers enrolled full-time in the child care program. The typical mother in this study was an ethnic-minority single parent. At the end of each day at work, before being reunited with their children, mothers completed subjective measures of two daily job stressors: workload and negative interactions with co-workers and supervisors. At the end of the day they completed two scales describing interactions with the target child that took place after work: adversive interaction and maternal withdrawal. In addition, the 13 dyads at one of the sites were videotaped during 10-minute free-play periods at the parent child reunion each evening. Multiple regression analyses found support of two hypotheses: (1) that daily increases in perceived workload were associated with a same-day behavioral and emotional withdrawal during mother-child interactions; and (2) distressing social interactions with co-workers and supervisors were associated with a same-day behavioral withdrawal during mother-child interactions. A third hypothesis--that distressing social interaction at work would be associated with increases in either mothers' reports of aversiveness of mother-child interactions or with observers' reports of maternal impatience--was not supported. (HTH)