Widowed baker Zürrer has to raise his three children, who all turn out to be disappointments to him in various ways.

Karl Wieser, the Zurich tram driver, is a henpecked husband. When he is chosen to give a demonstration ride to foreign experts, he gains favor with his wife Anni. The mother is also particularly proud of Helen, her older daughter in America, who has made a good match, her younger sister Inge, who is destined to become a world-famous singer, and her son Herbert, who is studying medicine. But it turns out that she is succumbing to her own delusions and deceit.