[1][2] Young Roberta "Bobby" Carter, only eight years old, catches her mother Joan as she kisses a man who isn't her father in a park.

Bobby is bullied for her mother's antics and romantics and ends up asking God to make her parents fall back in love.

Months later, Bobby is asked to the stand in her parents' divorce trial, as a witness of her mother's infidelity, but she refuses to leave any information.

A psychiatrist tells Joan and Ray that Bobby needs stability and continuity in her life to cope, and strongly suggests that only one of them should have sole custody over her.

To the sound of church bells playing the same tune as on her toy piano, Bobby vows to herself that she will never leave her own children when she grows up, and tuck them to bed every night.

Fleischer says the film was conceived as a vehicle for Sharyn Moffett, "a ten year old actress that the studio hoped would turn into a Shirley Temple or a Margaret O'Brien, a metamorphosis devoutly to be wished.