[Nixon's] inventive mind spins out a constant skein of exciting and relevant plots that have made All My Children the leading show in the daytime lineup. (p. 129)

And where do those ideas and themes come from? From life, from the world around us, as perceived by a writer highly attuned to the problems and passions that move us all. This, without doubt, is Agnes Nixon's most valuable asset and greatest talent, this finely tuned sensibility both to the moods of the time and to its stresses. If her invention sometimes seems boundless, it is nevertheless highly disciplined. Truth is the criterion against which she measures her fiction—the changing truths of our time and society, the eternal truths of our hearts.

The basic human motives—love, hate, greed, jealousy—have always been with us and have always been grist for the writer's mill, but each moment of history tends to concentrate on certain social and personal problems it considers immediate and urgent. Divorce, for example, once taboo on daytime television, is now virtually epidemic in the serials, as it is in real life. Even more timely is the subject of abortion…. [The split] between those who regard abortion as murder of an unborn human and those who regard a woman's right to control her own biological destiny as sacred is reflected in the soaps. When Erica, who was clearly too neurotically immature for motherhood, opted for abortion, all the arguments—pro and con—were given careful and balanced presentation. (Many disagreed vehemently with her decision, but most would have to admit that the question was treated with scrupulous fairness and good taste.) Devon, on the other hand, decided to keep her child, even though her pregnancy had resulted from an immature attempt to get even with one boy by sleeping with another. Devon's choice, aided by Wally's devotion and her mother's loving support, was indeed an affirmation of life, though she (and viewers, one hopes) now sees how self-destructive her immature sexual behavior really was. Perhaps some of the show's young fans will get the message and avoid becoming one of the million-plus teenage mothers produced by this sexually permissive society every year.

Agnes Nixon has often said that she hopes to "open people's minds a little bit" by showing that many of life's situations are not so black and white as they may at first appear. When Donna Beck, the sweet-faced and earnest young runaway who had been coerced into teenage prostitution, became Mrs. Chuck Tyler, many fans condemned Phoebe for her refusal to accept the girl into the family. After all, Donna was trying so hard to straighten out her life and be a good wife. How could Phoebe not welcome her with open arms and a forgiving heart? (pp. 129-30)

[A] woman was very hard on Phoebe at one of our mall show appearances [Warrick created the role of Phoebe Tyler], demanding that I "leave that poor girl alone." Phoebe stared her down and asked her to answer one question with complete honesty: "If your grandson came to you and said the girl he was planning to marry was an ex-hooker, a woman who had had sex with hundreds of men for money, how would you really feel?"

The woman was clearly torn by mixed emotions. Obviously she would not approve of such a thing in real life, yet she had sympathy for the guileless girl she'd come to know and love on All My Children. (Even poor Donna's obsessive attempts to better herself are seen as admirable, though her gaffes must leave viewers with a mixture of amusement and pain….) (p. 130)

We may laugh at Billy Clyde and Benny, too, and sometimes even at Phoebe's somewhat boozy imperiousness, but we feel for them all. And that is the secret of a successful serial: characters. Real people, with real problems and pains you can share, living out their lives as we all must, by trial and error, through tragedy and triumph. They are us, the people of Pine Valley, and their world is a surrogate for ours. The problems we share with them are our problems too, and as we watch them cope we can learn from their mistakes as well as their successes. In fact, in this mobile, often isolated world we now inhabit, where the loving support of extended family and life-long neighbors is often unavailable, Pine Valley may well be a substitute for those things we have lost. In the Martin and Tyler families we see how people interact, how they blunder and hurt one another but remain close, how they work their problems through within the framework of their world. That is why for many—if not most—of All My Children's millions of fans, Pine Valley actually is, in one sense, more real than their own neighborhood. They have unique access to those fictional lives and emotions, and can learn from them. (p. 131)

The question of whether the soaps actually reflect the real world has always been hotly debated, though the attacks seem often to come from those who have never actually watched the shows they castigate. "How could anyone have all those problems, one after another and one on top of another, in real life?" We hear that sort of question all the time, and the best answer I can give is: One couldn't, perhaps …, but All My Children has at least thirty-nine continuing characters, plus dozens that have been written out, killed off, or left in some limbo from which they may or may not return. Altogether there have been close to a hundred major characters—and uncounted minor ones—on the show during its first decade; and with that many people interacting over that span of time, even real life would have come up with a respectable list of marriages, divorces, deaths, and personal conflicts both petty and tragic. (p. 134)

The three-act play, like the nighttime dramatic show or the movie or the novel, distills experience into a single series of circumstances leading to a climax that will, one way or another, resolve the conflict. The soap opera, since it consists of many plot strands and since those many story lines will continue next week and next month, cannot achieve that cathartic resolution. What it can offer, however, is a series of catharses, with one story reaching a resolution (often temporary) while another one builds toward its own crisis. (p. 135)

Ironically, those who argue that the soaps are not realistic seem determined to disregard the obvious: The two-hour movie, the three-act play, or the one-hour episode of a nighttime dramatic show or situation comedy simplifies and isolates one set of characters and one chain of circumstances in a way that real life never does. The soaps, with their large casts and broad tapestry of stories, actually mirror at least one important aspect of reality in a far more direct fashion than any play ever could. But the soaps, too, are selective, since we are no more likely to relish dull trivia in a continuing story than we are to applaud if Macbeth spends the evening polishing his armor. But such selectivity is not unreal. It is simply a recognition of what we consider important enough to occupy our time and thought.

Yes, it may be true that the citizens of Pine Valley seem to have more problems than your family and neighbors confront, and they may seem to live at an emotional pitch few of us could endure for long. But look around you: How many salesmen do you know who suffer like [Arthur Miller's Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman], and how many cops face the perils of Kojak? For that matter, how many fathers have the problems that plagued [Shakespeare's] King Lear? Life contains conflict, and drama is a distillation of life, a prism that refracts the moving and important while omitting the insignificant.

The soaps, undeniably, mirror a very large number of ordinary life's manifold problems…. Such controversial subjects as interracial romance, interreligious marriage, and even antiwar activism have figured in the story, as they do in everyday life…. Times change, and the serials change with them. "We are first an entertaining medium," Agnes Nixon says, "but we are also a teaching medium. We don't set the tone, but we reflect the times and we encourage viewers to reflect on them."

Thus, All My Children is a teaching medium that neither preaches nor lectures. Rather, it permits viewers to experience problems vicariously and to measure their own beliefs against the decisions and actions of the characters. Perhaps this helps to explain why soaps are no longer solely the province of "bored housewives," if indeed they ever were. (pp. 135-6)

All My Children has proven any original doubters wrong and Agnes Nixon, as usual, right. The show was originally criticized for being too family oriented, too old-fashioned in its treatment of complicated relationships among people of several generations, committed to one another by bonds of blood and love. But Agnes Nixon believed in those things, and she made believers of the networks, the sponsors, and ten million loyal fans. The Martins and Tylers and the others of Pine Valley may have problems and even deep conflicts, but they are held together by those ties of family and community that are uniquely American. (p. 138)

For millions of Americans, Pine Valley is their hometown …, and from it they can draw guidance and comfort and reassurance that a common tie binds us all. (p. 139)

[One of the most poignant and thought-provoking sequences ever shown on daytime television was] the sadistic, unprovoked rape of Ruth Martin by Ray Gardner. The act itself was of course not explicitly shown, but, more to the point, its pathological motivations and appalling personal and legal consequences—all carefully researched by Agnes—were explored in depth. Society has too often failed to understand the essential nature of rape: a hate-filled crime that has nothing to do with normal sexuality. Agnes has done many admirable things, but her tasteful, yet unflinchingly candid treatment of this repellent social problem must be one of her finest achievements. (p. 177)

If it is true that America is turning back to romance in its popular entertainments, I'd have to say that All My Children has been there all along. Tara and Phil, Jeff and Mary, Cliff and Nina—at no time have we been without at least one story line dealing with idealized young love. There are conflicts, problems, even tragedies, to be sure, but through it all the emotions of the young lovers run pure, intense, and full of yearning. Agnes Nixon may have a sharp eye for timely issues, but she also has a heart that understands the simple things that always move us most. (p. 180)

There is something of Erica in all of us—and something of Mona and Chuck and Benny and Brooke and every other inhabitant of Pine Valley. It was Agnes Nixon's genius to isolate and identify those somethings, to clothe them with imagined personalities and to turn them into vivid, believable characters. (p. 214)