Our group is on a trip to the countryside. It's the evening and they have decided to get a campfire going, cook sausages, and have a good old chinwag.

Pavla: I haven't sat around a campfire like this since dad left us.

Andrea: Hey, wait a mo, you don't have a father, right?

Pavla: No, I don't, but I don't want to talk about it.

Andrea: I can't imagine it, my parents sometimes row, but they'd never separate.

Pavla: Sometimes it's better when they get a divorce. I'm satisfied with just my brother, we get on really well.

Jami: My sister doesn't have it easy because our parents are strict, especially dad, so they don't want her to go anywhere and I have to look after her.

Jožo: I’d rather look after someone than be on my own the whole time.

Magda: Yeah, you’re right, being an only child is not all it’s made out to be. Your parents are always worrying about you, always asking where you’re going, what time you’ll be back, and so on. It really gets on my nerves.

Daniel: Yeah, but when you’ve got brothers and sisters, they’re always around you, wherever I go I’ve got to take them too. On the other hand I’m glad that we have a full household. I can’t imagine being on my own.

Suong: In our family everything my parents say goes.

Jožo: That’s the case everywhere surely?

Jami: I dunno, I think some parents can be a bit more tolerant. In our family it’s a bloody nightmare, though. If we want to go out, we get a sermon from dad about what we can and can’t do, what time we have to be back, and if we cock up at all, then, that’s the end of it. My parents don’t believe us and then they won’t let us out anywhere the next time.

Suong: My parents are similar. After school I have to help my father in the restaurant, and free time just doesn’t exist. But sometimes I quite like it. The truth is it isn’t so awful.