Parenting stress can lead to negative, coercive, and harsh parenting and these can have a negative and direct effect on children’s behavior. Using data from a subsample of unmarried black mothers and nonresident biological fathers with a focal 3-year-old child (N= 1,370) from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we tested a model linking economic hardship and nonresident fathers’ involvement in single mothers’ family life during children’s early childhood (age 3-5) to behavior problems in middle childhood (age 9) and early adolescence (age 15). We tested whether these associations differed by child gender. In general, results were consistent with our theoretical expectations, especially for boys. Economic hardship was linked indirectly to harsh parenting through mothers’ depressive symptoms and parenting stress, both of which were related directly to harsh parenting. Fathers’ involvement was associated directly with reduced economic hardship and reduced parenting stress for mothers at child’s age 3-5, and reduced levels of harsh parenting at child’s age 9, for mothers of boys, but only with reduced economic hardship for mothers of girls. Harsh parenting during middle childhood, in turn, was associated directly and positively with behavior problems for both genders at age 9. Problem behaviors at age 9 predicted adjustment problems at age 15. Implications of these findings for prevention and intervention efforts and future research are considered.