In three parts, the documentary takes a look at the lives of three working mothers in East Berlin. Carola is a nude model and cleaner, Sabine is a singer and Heike is a secretary. All the women have to bring up their children alone, some of them abandoned by their husbands, some of them having consciously broken out of the housewife existence. Their self-determination is repeatedly thwarted by a repressive society. Director Petra Tschörner captures the daily struggle for survival of these women, who also have their say to explain their sometimes precarious situation from their own perspective.