The Day the World Stopped Turning
A few weeks ago my mother's favorite soap opera, "As the World Turns" went off the air. When I first heard this was happening I was mildly disappointed. Even though I hadn't watched it in years it had been a part of my life since my birth. Mom used to feed me by it and then watch the rest of it while I napped. For her it went back much further than that.
She began watching it in 1956 when it started. She thinks of all the people of Oakdale Illinois as her friends, even the characters whom she doesn't like. My NaNa (grandmother) watched it with her and it was hard for them to distinguish fantasy from the reality. When my brothers and I were old enough to understand this obsession we used to tease my mother that is, when we figured out she was talking about a tv show. Sometimes we'd hear Mom and NaNa talking and mistakenly think they were talking about real people. "Who died?" We'd ask. "Who doesn't know who their real father is? Are you going to tell them?" I do recall one particularly upsetting incident when I was eight or nine years old. My great-uncle had recently been in the hospital for a mild heart attack and on ATWT a character, Nick, had had a heart attack.
I walked in the door and my mother greeted me with, "Something very sad happened today."
"What??" I asked, completely panicked. I was sure she was going to tell me that Uncle Lloyd had died.
"Nick died," she said sadly.
"On the soap opera?" I screamed. I burst in to tears and said to her, "I'm crying because I thought you were going to tell me something real happened!" Mom felt terrible of course, and promised never to give me "fantasy news" like that again.
There were definitely times that I welcomed the fantasy of our soap opera. When I was in 7th grade a boy who I knew was brutally murdered. I was devastated, as were my peers, even those who didn't know him. It was so unbelievable that something that terrible could happen in our safe little community. My brother and I had many questions about it that would never be answered. During that time it felt nice to sit down and watch our soap opera and be transported into an alternate universe. We needed to know that the world did go on turning.
As I got older I became more interested in the lives of the people on the screen and as soon as we had a VCR the show was recorded everyday. Mom would ride her exercise bike and skip through the commercials while I would eat my after-school snack and watch.
If not for VCRs we would never have found my Bat-Mitzvah dress. I was at school when mom watched an episode where a 13 year old character, Lily, played at the time by Lucy Deakins, attended a formal party in a fancy dress. Her boyfriend Dusty's, (then played by Brian Bloom) eyes popped out of his head when he saw her in the dress. I had a huge crush on the actor. It was a cream colored lace dress with a drop waist, the height of style in 1984. Mom practically yanked me into the house after school the day that was on. "You have to see this dress!" She said excitedly. I watched with her and loved the dress as much as she did (which was quite unusual) and she immediately plotted to get that dress. She called ATWT in New York to inquire. The dress had been purchased at Sacks Fifth Ave. and while they couldn't sell me the dress Lucy wore (even though it turned out we were the same size and weight!) they would try to find us another one. A few months later it was shipped to a store in San Carlos and fit me perfectly!
Looking back now I realize that soap operas get a bad rap. During summers and school vacations the story lines would focus on the adolescent characters of the show. They were usually facing real issues such as Frannie who was dating Kirk but fell in love with his best friend Jay. Neither Frannie or Jay wanted to hurt Kirk and so they fought their feelings until they no longer could. In the end, they both remained friends with Kirk. This prompted a discussion between my mother and me about friendship and how easily friends can hurt each other without having any ill intent.
It's probably no surprise that sex was part of almost every storyline on the show. However, sex among the teen characters had several rules. Mom and I noticed a pattern: teenage girls never lost their virginity on the show until after high school graduation. Mom of course appreciated that and saw it as the writers taking her side in the battle of keeping me innocent as long as she could. Teenage boys however did not wait until the same milestone had passed. Both of these patterns prompted a discussion with my mother about sexual activity. She would ask me if any of my friends were having sex and what I thought about people being sexually active in high school. I pointed out how sexist it was that girls on the show waited to have intercourse while boys on the show often did not. She agreed that it was making an assumption that viewers would think it was ok for boys to be sexual at a young age but not girls. She made it clear to me that she wanted all three of her children to wait until we were older. Around that time my dad read in the paper about a study that came out saying that teenage girls were most likely to get pregnant between three and five in the afternoon on weekdays. Mom used to say, "I don't have to worry about that because you're either at swim practice or home watching As the World Turns."
Along with the sex story lines came birth control, abortion and adoption. On soap operas, at least when I was in my teens, abortion only occurred if the mother's life was at risk, or if the girl who became pregnant was "bad." Otherwise babies were given up for adoption only to discover years down the road that their biological mother, father or both were living down the street from them or working with them at the coffee shop or in some cases a member of their extended family.
My parents are both vehemently pro-choice. In fact I went to a few pro-choice rallies with them when I was old enough to understand what "a woman's right to choose," meant. There was a story line on ATWT where a young "bad girl," Julie came to town. She announced to her ex-boyfriend Duke, who was a "good guy" and already dating the daughter of a prominent Oakdale couple, that she was pregnant with his baby. It turned out not to be his baby but Duke's father paid her off to get out of town and raise the baby on her own so as not to make trouble for his son. She returned a week later having "taken care of" the unplanned pregnancy.
"What about the money my dad gave you?" Duke asked Julie.
"That's how I paid for the abortion," Julie said casually.
"That money was supposed to be for your kid's future," Duke yelled at her.
"Well what about my future?" Julie asked yelling back. "Doesn't that count?"
After the episode ended, Mom and I agreed that Julie made a compelling argument. In a world where abortion was made legal in 1973, why was Julie seen as evil for exercising her right to choose? Why should she be forced to be a single mother when the real father was nowhere to be found and she wasn't ready to be a parent? She had made mistakes but it was only by a stroke of luck that Duke wasn't the baby's father and neither he or the bio dad were expected to help with a baby that might have come along.
Alcoholism followed by drunk driving was another popular storyline among the teen actors. Andy and his girlfriend Kathy started drinking occasionally when her drinking got out of control. She eventually went away in an ambulance after an overdose and went in to rehab. When she got out Andy seemed to have taken her place in the addiction line. He drove drunk and hit another teen character crossing the street. Of course she survived, but Andy spent the night in jail and then went in to rehab. This was definitely a topic that should have been followed with more discussion. I think Mom was a bit naive about her children's exposure to high school drinking.
There were happy episodes too which were always fun to watch together with both my mother and grandmother and years later, my niece Samantha and sister-in-law Jackie. Every once in a while there would be a wedding where no one was being blackmailed, tricked or forced to marry for any other reason than the fact that the bride and groom loved each other. There was no guest looking on sadly as their soul mate married someone else, everyone was just happy. We'd kick all the men out and settle in to watch. In the cases of couples who had been star crossed lovers for years and finally found their way to the alter there would be a special ending that was like looking at a wedding album rather than the usual globe turning and telling us to tune in tomorrow. It was magical, and one couldn't help but feel good for the rest of the day.
The summer I was 16 I went away to Israel for six weeks. Back in the mid eighties there was no internet. Our only form of communication with our parents or friends back home was snail mail. Every letter I received from my mother contained a summary of the latest on "As the World Turns." I soon discovered that my mother wasn't the only one playing tv guide. Another girl on the trip filled us in on "Days of Our Lives" whenever she got a letter from her mother. While I was having a wonderful time being away from home, it was great feeling like I wasn't so far away when I read those letters.
When I went away to college I no longer tuned in regularly. As long as the show was being recorded at my mother's house I knew I could tune in any time on school breaks. However those visits to old episodes became few and far between. Mom was thrilled when she discovered that her new daughter-in-law Jackie was a fan of the show. It gave them a lot to talk about in those early days of getting to know each other. Mom told me recently that she thinks Jackie misses the show more than she does. Being a busy working mom to eight and eleven year old boys, watching ATWT was her hour to unwind.
By the time I graduated college I was completely out of the loop with the show but NaNa, Mom and Jackie still watched religiously. I went to Israel, this time for a year and while Mom wrote me many letters none of them contained soap opera updates. She knew I was no longer interested, but I think she missed giving me the summaries anyway.
Eventually my niece Samantha, who was my other brother Rob's child, became old enough to watch with my mother and they too shared discussions about teen and adult angst. I was happy my mom was able to share it with a new generation.
A few years later my mother and her friend Ruth whom she met in and As the World Turns chat room, somehow arranged to have a tour of the studio and even met some of the show's stars. They were star struck and it was great to hear my mom so excited about her experience. She later wrote an article for an internet magazine about her interview with Helen Wagner, ATWT's Nancy, who has since passed away.
When my husband Richard and I became engaged my grandfather died. While it wasn't a complete shock, it was a painful time. My grandparents had an incredible marriage that lasted almost 64 years. Papa loved NaNa so completely that the rest of us could only hope to have a relationship half as devoted as theirs. He never teased her about her devotion to the soap opera. In fact, he enjoyed the fact that she would sit and relax for at least an hour a day and that she has something fun to talk about with the other women in the family.
After Papa's death NaNa stopped watching the show. She was too depressed to derive pleasure from almost anything. She did dance at my wedding and basked in the joy of becoming a great-grandmother two more times to my nephew Elijah and my first child Tali. Unlike my mother I did not feed my baby in front of a soap opera, and when she ( and later my second child Charlie) went down for her nap I went down for mine.
While Mom wrote letters begging the station not to pull the show it's end was scheduled and all the loose ends were being tied up. The paternity tests were all in, the start crossed lovers got together and secret identities were revealed. There were even a few pregnancies being announced. Mom didn't want to answer the phone or the door, she just wanted to watch together and cry.
It was the end of an era. My childhood was long gone and now my own children were already in school. My grandparents were gone and I think that was the loss my mother was really mourning. Her show was ending and her mother wasn't around to watch it with her anymore and her daughter was only watching it's last episode to appease her.
It wasn't nearly as good as I thought it would be. Without all the tension and secrets there was hardly a storyline. It was mostly a bunch of people patching up relationships or saying good-bye. There were a few cute babies as well as cute men to look at. The time with my mother was nice. We are rarely alone without my children around needing attention. For that one hour we were back in time when I was still only her daughter, no one's mother and no one's wife.
We made lunch together and "fed" by the show for the very last time. Once again Mom got to fill me in on all her "friends" in Oakdale. She cried a little and then the world stopped turning.
She began watching it in 1956 when it started. She thinks of all the people of Oakdale Illinois as her friends, even the characters whom she doesn't like. My NaNa (grandmother) watched it with her and it was hard for them to distinguish fantasy from the reality. When my brothers and I were old enough to understand this obsession we used to tease my mother that is, when we figured out she was talking about a tv show. Sometimes we'd hear Mom and NaNa talking and mistakenly think they were talking about real people. "Who died?" We'd ask. "Who doesn't know who their real father is? Are you going to tell them?" I do recall one particularly upsetting incident when I was eight or nine years old. My great-uncle had recently been in the hospital for a mild heart attack and on ATWT a character, Nick, had had a heart attack.
I walked in the door and my mother greeted me with, "Something very sad happened today."
"What??" I asked, completely panicked. I was sure she was going to tell me that Uncle Lloyd had died.
"Nick died," she said sadly.
"On the soap opera?" I screamed. I burst in to tears and said to her, "I'm crying because I thought you were going to tell me something real happened!" Mom felt terrible of course, and promised never to give me "fantasy news" like that again.
There were definitely times that I welcomed the fantasy of our soap opera. When I was in 7th grade a boy who I knew was brutally murdered. I was devastated, as were my peers, even those who didn't know him. It was so unbelievable that something that terrible could happen in our safe little community. My brother and I had many questions about it that would never be answered. During that time it felt nice to sit down and watch our soap opera and be transported into an alternate universe. We needed to know that the world did go on turning.
As I got older I became more interested in the lives of the people on the screen and as soon as we had a VCR the show was recorded everyday. Mom would ride her exercise bike and skip through the commercials while I would eat my after-school snack and watch.
If not for VCRs we would never have found my Bat-Mitzvah dress. I was at school when mom watched an episode where a 13 year old character, Lily, played at the time by Lucy Deakins, attended a formal party in a fancy dress. Her boyfriend Dusty's, (then played by Brian Bloom) eyes popped out of his head when he saw her in the dress. I had a huge crush on the actor. It was a cream colored lace dress with a drop waist, the height of style in 1984. Mom practically yanked me into the house after school the day that was on. "You have to see this dress!" She said excitedly. I watched with her and loved the dress as much as she did (which was quite unusual) and she immediately plotted to get that dress. She called ATWT in New York to inquire. The dress had been purchased at Sacks Fifth Ave. and while they couldn't sell me the dress Lucy wore (even though it turned out we were the same size and weight!) they would try to find us another one. A few months later it was shipped to a store in San Carlos and fit me perfectly!
Looking back now I realize that soap operas get a bad rap. During summers and school vacations the story lines would focus on the adolescent characters of the show. They were usually facing real issues such as Frannie who was dating Kirk but fell in love with his best friend Jay. Neither Frannie or Jay wanted to hurt Kirk and so they fought their feelings until they no longer could. In the end, they both remained friends with Kirk. This prompted a discussion between my mother and me about friendship and how easily friends can hurt each other without having any ill intent.
It's probably no surprise that sex was part of almost every storyline on the show. However, sex among the teen characters had several rules. Mom and I noticed a pattern: teenage girls never lost their virginity on the show until after high school graduation. Mom of course appreciated that and saw it as the writers taking her side in the battle of keeping me innocent as long as she could. Teenage boys however did not wait until the same milestone had passed. Both of these patterns prompted a discussion with my mother about sexual activity. She would ask me if any of my friends were having sex and what I thought about people being sexually active in high school. I pointed out how sexist it was that girls on the show waited to have intercourse while boys on the show often did not. She agreed that it was making an assumption that viewers would think it was ok for boys to be sexual at a young age but not girls. She made it clear to me that she wanted all three of her children to wait until we were older. Around that time my dad read in the paper about a study that came out saying that teenage girls were most likely to get pregnant between three and five in the afternoon on weekdays. Mom used to say, "I don't have to worry about that because you're either at swim practice or home watching As the World Turns."
Along with the sex story lines came birth control, abortion and adoption. On soap operas, at least when I was in my teens, abortion only occurred if the mother's life was at risk, or if the girl who became pregnant was "bad." Otherwise babies were given up for adoption only to discover years down the road that their biological mother, father or both were living down the street from them or working with them at the coffee shop or in some cases a member of their extended family.
My parents are both vehemently pro-choice. In fact I went to a few pro-choice rallies with them when I was old enough to understand what "a woman's right to choose," meant. There was a story line on ATWT where a young "bad girl," Julie came to town. She announced to her ex-boyfriend Duke, who was a "good guy" and already dating the daughter of a prominent Oakdale couple, that she was pregnant with his baby. It turned out not to be his baby but Duke's father paid her off to get out of town and raise the baby on her own so as not to make trouble for his son. She returned a week later having "taken care of" the unplanned pregnancy.
"What about the money my dad gave you?" Duke asked Julie.
"That's how I paid for the abortion," Julie said casually.
"That money was supposed to be for your kid's future," Duke yelled at her.
"Well what about my future?" Julie asked yelling back. "Doesn't that count?"
After the episode ended, Mom and I agreed that Julie made a compelling argument. In a world where abortion was made legal in 1973, why was Julie seen as evil for exercising her right to choose? Why should she be forced to be a single mother when the real father was nowhere to be found and she wasn't ready to be a parent? She had made mistakes but it was only by a stroke of luck that Duke wasn't the baby's father and neither he or the bio dad were expected to help with a baby that might have come along.
Alcoholism followed by drunk driving was another popular storyline among the teen actors. Andy and his girlfriend Kathy started drinking occasionally when her drinking got out of control. She eventually went away in an ambulance after an overdose and went in to rehab. When she got out Andy seemed to have taken her place in the addiction line. He drove drunk and hit another teen character crossing the street. Of course she survived, but Andy spent the night in jail and then went in to rehab. This was definitely a topic that should have been followed with more discussion. I think Mom was a bit naive about her children's exposure to high school drinking.
There were happy episodes too which were always fun to watch together with both my mother and grandmother and years later, my niece Samantha and sister-in-law Jackie. Every once in a while there would be a wedding where no one was being blackmailed, tricked or forced to marry for any other reason than the fact that the bride and groom loved each other. There was no guest looking on sadly as their soul mate married someone else, everyone was just happy. We'd kick all the men out and settle in to watch. In the cases of couples who had been star crossed lovers for years and finally found their way to the alter there would be a special ending that was like looking at a wedding album rather than the usual globe turning and telling us to tune in tomorrow. It was magical, and one couldn't help but feel good for the rest of the day.
The summer I was 16 I went away to Israel for six weeks. Back in the mid eighties there was no internet. Our only form of communication with our parents or friends back home was snail mail. Every letter I received from my mother contained a summary of the latest on "As the World Turns." I soon discovered that my mother wasn't the only one playing tv guide. Another girl on the trip filled us in on "Days of Our Lives" whenever she got a letter from her mother. While I was having a wonderful time being away from home, it was great feeling like I wasn't so far away when I read those letters.
When I went away to college I no longer tuned in regularly. As long as the show was being recorded at my mother's house I knew I could tune in any time on school breaks. However those visits to old episodes became few and far between. Mom was thrilled when she discovered that her new daughter-in-law Jackie was a fan of the show. It gave them a lot to talk about in those early days of getting to know each other. Mom told me recently that she thinks Jackie misses the show more than she does. Being a busy working mom to eight and eleven year old boys, watching ATWT was her hour to unwind.
By the time I graduated college I was completely out of the loop with the show but NaNa, Mom and Jackie still watched religiously. I went to Israel, this time for a year and while Mom wrote me many letters none of them contained soap opera updates. She knew I was no longer interested, but I think she missed giving me the summaries anyway.
Eventually my niece Samantha, who was my other brother Rob's child, became old enough to watch with my mother and they too shared discussions about teen and adult angst. I was happy my mom was able to share it with a new generation.
A few years later my mother and her friend Ruth whom she met in and As the World Turns chat room, somehow arranged to have a tour of the studio and even met some of the show's stars. They were star struck and it was great to hear my mom so excited about her experience. She later wrote an article for an internet magazine about her interview with Helen Wagner, ATWT's Nancy, who has since passed away.
When my husband Richard and I became engaged my grandfather died. While it wasn't a complete shock, it was a painful time. My grandparents had an incredible marriage that lasted almost 64 years. Papa loved NaNa so completely that the rest of us could only hope to have a relationship half as devoted as theirs. He never teased her about her devotion to the soap opera. In fact, he enjoyed the fact that she would sit and relax for at least an hour a day and that she has something fun to talk about with the other women in the family.
After Papa's death NaNa stopped watching the show. She was too depressed to derive pleasure from almost anything. She did dance at my wedding and basked in the joy of becoming a great-grandmother two more times to my nephew Elijah and my first child Tali. Unlike my mother I did not feed my baby in front of a soap opera, and when she ( and later my second child Charlie) went down for her nap I went down for mine.
While Mom wrote letters begging the station not to pull the show it's end was scheduled and all the loose ends were being tied up. The paternity tests were all in, the start crossed lovers got together and secret identities were revealed. There were even a few pregnancies being announced. Mom didn't want to answer the phone or the door, she just wanted to watch together and cry.
It was the end of an era. My childhood was long gone and now my own children were already in school. My grandparents were gone and I think that was the loss my mother was really mourning. Her show was ending and her mother wasn't around to watch it with her anymore and her daughter was only watching it's last episode to appease her.
It wasn't nearly as good as I thought it would be. Without all the tension and secrets there was hardly a storyline. It was mostly a bunch of people patching up relationships or saying good-bye. There were a few cute babies as well as cute men to look at. The time with my mother was nice. We are rarely alone without my children around needing attention. For that one hour we were back in time when I was still only her daughter, no one's mother and no one's wife.
We made lunch together and "fed" by the show for the very last time. Once again Mom got to fill me in on all her "friends" in Oakdale. She cried a little and then the world stopped turning.
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