Young parents Liam and Caroline Flynn are working extra shifts to save up for a holiday, but who is looking after the kids? Chloe gets a piercing in her tongue, Steve has a run-in with the school bully, and Mikey eats food left out the back of restaurants. This is all because Liam's brother Tommy fills the breach, with his own idiosyncratic brand of parenting.

Liam catches Chloe kissing the lad from next door and reacts badly, throwing a milkshake at them. A humiliated Chloe is furious with her dad, but the more Liam tries to patch things up, the worse things get. Meanwhile, Caroline wonders if she'll ever get out to celebrate her birthday, and Jim winds up in trouble with Psycho Trev from the Wheatsheaf.

Following a pregnancy scare, Liam resolves to have the snip, but wimps out at the last minute. Keeping the truth from Caroline, however, becomes increasingly difficult. Elsewhere, Grandad Jim discovers that Mikey has shoplifted a toy gun. He takes Mikey back to the shop to confess and pay up, but his endeavour is frustrated by the shopkeeper from hell.

Liam finds out that Chloe's got a fake ID and plans to go to a flash party. He sets off with Tommy to find her, only to discover she's been one step ahead of him all along. Meanwhile, Caroline is fed up with Jim's bad behaviour whenever he visits the hotel where he works. When an opportunity for revenge presents itself, she starts to concoct a plan.

Liam buys a guitar with some money that Chloe thinks should be spent on her school ski trip. A battle of wills ensues, with Liam resolving not to cave in to his daughter, and Chloe determined to go on that holiday. Meanwhile, Mikey walks in on his parents in flagrante. Caroline is mortified, but her bigger problem is how to stop Liam telling everyone about it.

Liam is fed up with Uncle Tommy sleeping on the front room couch. Tommy says he is avoiding a stalky ex-girlfriend, but Liam decides it is time to move him on and secretly invites the woman in question to come round. Meanwhile, Jim forces a reluctant Mikey to take up football. But his efforts to give the lad confidence backfire when Mikey's success goes to his head.