Her mother Helen is on her fourth marriage to Mike, an unemployed man who uses his back as an excuse to avoid work, and living with them are Kathy's 16-year-old twin sisters, Mona and Dona.

She begins to explore options of moving into a place of her own, which doesn't sit well with Mike and Helen, who depend on her welfare money to pay for the bigger apartment.

She makes friends with Linda and Sue, two other girls in a teen mother program to move into a rented house with their children in a middle-class family-type neighborhood.

She also makes friends with her neighbor Jane, a married woman about ten years her senior with a house, her fireman husband Allen, and their young daughter Wendy.

However, Kathy's dreams of sharing responsibilities with her roommates as a collective effort to rise above their circumstances are quashed when Linda throws a party with booze found in a baby bottle.