In an alternate universe of white suburban America, one nine-year-old girl's childhood is cut short when her parents find her a marital match: a socially-awkward businessman with a ridiculous mustache. Although she surrenders to her mother's housewife training, when the day of the wedding arrives, she tries to escape, endangering her and others in the process.

Two sisters, both Sociology professors, find themselves summering husbandless in their rickety childhood home with their bastion of six children, their ornery mother, and their paralyzed father. They swap between stories of their upbringing and their present task of preparing for a fatal hurricane which will challenge their quaint way of life.

When 17-year-old girl becomes pregnant, she has no choice but to hide her pregnancy. As she grows older, she realizes she must unburden herself of the secret, or hide it for the rest of her life.

Though most of a prep school's students are away for the long weekend, a few boys stay behind at the dorms and are invited to dinner with a wealthy boy and his stepmother. At the dinner, the stepmother's attitude and appearance are just as alluring as the food, but the wealthy student acts strange and detached the whole evening.

In New York, a young woman befriends her quirky roommate, who is trying to make it as an actor. While she watches her roommate attempt to accomplish her dreams, the woman reflects on her own life’s direction and what possibilities (or lack of) lie ahead.

A young Black girl tags along with her best friend to club in the city, and the two of them lose their virginities.

A teenage girl is sent to prep school after her mother dies. She tries to fit in, but it leads to pain and confusion.

Amongst problems with her ungrateful children and ex-husband, a middle-aged mother deals with a burgeoning mid-life crisis — until she realizes that she has become miraculously pregnant.

A working-class mother has held only one hope for her entire life: that one day, her daughter would marry well and wealthy, and take care of her in her old age. When her daughter reveals that the man she loves is not wealthy, her mother's dreams of rest are dashed and divided.

A young Black girl confronts her overbearing mother's poverty and her lack of a father when she is coerced into attending a program intended to make her a "professional" member of society who can break the cycle of poverty.