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.

After having an affair with a married man, a woman divorces her old husband and remarries, but she struggles to keep up with the compounded responsibilities of mother- and step-motherhood.

When a mother takes her children to buy a puppy from another mother, she finds an unsettling household and a child chained like a dog in the backyard. Through their alternating narratives, both mothers reflect on what it means to love your children.

The lives of a teenage girl in an abusive relationship, an elderly mother looking to make amends, and an unfaithful wife converge on an unexpected evening.

A beautiful, recently divorced mother recounts to her date the story of her turbulent marriage in San Francisco with her border patrol ex-husband.

A woman navigates her new life and her relationship with her criminally insane husband, who killed her three children.

An afternoon at the park takes an unexpected turn for a mother and her son as the well-established families that they admire turn out to be unhappy people who secretly enjoy the misery of others. As the day progresses, the mother is surprised to learn that she and her son share many negative qualities with those families.

An encounter with a little boy and his abusive mother at an airport causes an old woman to reflect upon her relationship with her children and her late, depressive, and abusive ex-husband.

A mother's mistakes haunt her. When a man brutalizes her, she accepts his punches as punishment for her sins.

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.