Typical mother, Noguchi Satsuki, spends her days trying to balance her life as a wife to her hard-working husband Kazuhiko and mother to their only son Tomoya, a seemingly withdrawn fifth-grader with whom Satsuki struggles to communicate. Seiko and Ozawa Hideaki, living in the same neighborhood as the Noguchi family, are raising a rebellious junior high school daughter, Mihoko, and their first son, Kiyotaka, a second-grader who is showered with much love and affection by his mother.