A small town in Switzerland. A household with a woman and her son. There is no man, there are men. And there is always a lack of money, and even more so of tenderness. Lukas Bärfuss's mother was a woman without education and without prospects, but with an insatiable desire for freedom. She saw the child as a burden; she had not chosen this life. She called herself a bad mother; her son ended up on the streets. She had only the weapon of the powerless, her harsh words. In her old age, she had no other option but to migrate in poverty to the Dominican Republic, from one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where her retirement was unaffordable. The son had to learn early on the art of surviving his mother. And today, as he writes and remembers, he asks the question of where in a miserable life personal responsibility ends and that of an entire society begins.