The impact of an absent father emerges in the gruesome stories of a young daughter as her alcoholic mother listens and reflects on the struggles of raising her alone.

A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.

Though numerous social workers try to step in, a co-dependent mother and son bounce from city to city, in search of a place where they can be together at all times.

A mother in Greece is grieving the death of one of her sons, which sends her to request more children from the city council. Granting her three sons to care for, she sets about transforming them from boys to men, employing incest at times.

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 quasi-reformed stalker worries about the influence of his creepy behaviors on his son.

In an attempt to impress his emotionally distant father, a boy ridicules his mother, who has loved him unconditionally even in his father's absence. Wracked with guilt, he yearns for her forgiveness - only to find that she does not hold it against him.

In an alternate universe in 19th century Boston, a single mother commits an act of unnatural cruelty against her son. However, since women are invincible against a man's violence, the wife of an esteemed policeman takes on the task of executing her, only to have second thoughts in the cold gallows.

A series of vignettes about various sons along a family tree.

A woman with a troubled, cruel son pays careful attention when a mother across the street murders her children, feeling eerily connected to the mother and her motives.