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to balance her life as a wife to her hard-working husband Kazuhiko and mother to their only son Tomoya, a seemingly withdrawn fifth-grader with whom Satsuki struggled to communicate.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