Which Soaps Divined you Childhood?

[DRW50]

When I was a kid I got into Dark Shadows too. But this was the Sci-Fi Channel, so I was the only person my age who watched it.

I was a weird kid.

I've heard so many stories like yours. I used to be cynical and think "ran home from school" was a marketing ploy from Dark Shadows people, but it really wasn't.

[marceline]

SFT, AMC and GL: I discovered them all when I was home from kindergarten with the chickenpox.

Y&R: I never watched it but I remember watching my mom bring my dad up to date on it over dinner night every night. He loved the hell out of Victor Newmann.

[Nate4]

I watched PC / AMC / OLTL / GH as a young child, but as I grew older I mostly watched GH.

[Faulkner]

I watched the CBS soaps but skipped to AMC on ABC when B&B was on. Y&R and GL were the two shows that most defined my childhood. (I remember being stricken when they killed off Maureen Bauer.)

[ajsp35801]

I always remember the soaps being on in the back ground growing up. But I didn't start really watching them myself until I was 12 (only in the summertime too). Y&R was my show and Olivia Barber was me...but my favorite was Drucilla!!! I can not listen to Nadia's theme without feeling that youthful summertime nostalgia. I have watched Y&R, B&B, ATWT, GL, AMC, OLTL, & GH. But something would happen to make me stop watching one or another for a while then I would eventually start back. I remember standing in front of the TV turning from one soap to the other during commercial breaks (B&B and the second part of AMC).

[Gray Bunny]

Days of our Lives circa 1995-1997 takes me back to my junior high days. The simple innocent years...

I'm also quite fond of Guiding Light circa 1997-1999, ushering me in from 8th grade through sophomore year. I still watched DAYS religiously, but my favorite era was '95-'97.

[AdelaideCate007]

GH, AW, DAYS, AMC, Y&R

[beebs]

For me, my early childhood was all about GL (thanks to my mom, I got into that around '94, but Brent/Marian and the Amish Reva stories drew me in, and that peaked with Annie's trial. I think I developed a real love for outlandish stories from that.

From there, I definitely made a beeline to DAYS. My family scoffed at it, mainly for the awful dialogue and questionable acting choices, but the stories were progressively getting worse and worse, which didn't help. Once JER left, I slowly bored of DAYS and once Eileen Davidson left, I moved over to GH and OLTL, before giving up on soaps altogether by around 2000. Only really started to come back when GL's cancellation was announced.

[saynotoursoap]

I was one of those kids who "ran home" to see Dark Shadows...and One Life to Live after it debuted. Neither one of these was "my show". It was Days, Another World, and The Doctors I was gaga over in the late 60s, but I enjoyed plopping down on my red bean bag, slurping sodas and eating snacks while OLTL and DS were on.

[SFK]

AMC. I never had "babysitters" growing up. I was always watched by my grandparents and great-grandparents before I was school aged and then after school. My paternal grandad taught private music lessons out of his home studio and would come upstairs to watch some tube while he ate his lunch. He got into AMC and introduced my dad and his siblings to it. His wife aka my grandma would later get into it when she retired in '79 which was the year of my birth. Lunchtime was synonymous with AMC in their household. Meanwhile, my mom was a teen mom, pregnant with my older brother in '70 when AMC debuted. Her mom was a CBS fan but her grandparents watched ABC and she took after them. So as a small child, I was exposed to AMC often twice a day, live and on VHS from both sides of my family. I remember summers at my dad's parents when they would go to tend to their waterfront property in VA and let me stay back and tell me to watch AMC so I could give them the play-by-play when they got home. My grandad used to

[SFK]

say that my synopses were better than watching the actual show.

[Maxim]

In the late 90s and 2000-2 I would tape every single B&B episode and re-watch it with my grandma. I would fake that I'm sick, so I would be excused from school and record the episode. I remember when my father burned by mistake some VHS tapes with B&B and I didn't speak to him for days. B&B's opening music was my first ringtone. I had posters of Brooke and Ridge all over my room. And even a photo album for Brooke. B&B reminds me of my childhood, it brings me memories from when me and my grandma would talk about the show for hours, she hated Brooke, I loved her, we argued all day. I remember when Sheila shot Stephanie in 1998 - we cried at the thought of Stephanie dying.

[soapsnstuds]

Like most gay men that preferred living with his grandma over his parents, I also became her little soap watching pal.

And she watched the NBC lineup in the 1970's. If I had known I was missing out on All My Children, One Life to Live etc. in 1975, I would have thrown a huge temper tantrum that would have forced her to make the switch to ABC.

I so vividly remember seeing Beverlee McKinsey every single day of my life. And I thought she was so evil and so old. I remember tons and tons of scenes with Douglass Watson and as a little boy, I thought he was playing her son. It wasn't until recently, in my late 30's that I realized that Mac Cory was Iris's dad. And no, I didn't enjoy Days of Our Lives as a little boy but I do remember enjoying shirtless scenes with Gregg Marx.

[Skin]

All My Children was the first soap I watched and that was in 97 (I was about 8-9 at the time), and I remembering being entrapped in Maria Santos storyline before her inevitable death. After that I lost touch with AMC for years until I eventually found Soapnet, and then I remembering watching Leo and Greenlee eloping to Paris to find his father. I remember loving Ryan/Kendell before he left because he thought Kendell was cheating on him, Maria/Maureen eventually getting her memory back, Chris Stamp dying, the Cambias arc, Bianca's rape, Ryan's reintroduction, etc. and then I remember lapsing as a viewer again until around 2005 where I started watching straight until 2007.

When I was in 4th grade, I would say OLTL was my go to soap when I got out of school. The Christian/Jessica/Natalie/Al triangle was the first story I was deeply interested in, in that soap along with Todd and Tea being stranded on the island and Nora/Ty/Lindsey triangle was also spell binding for me too. I got into GH during this time period too, I remember when Carly saw Sonny sleeping with Alexis and then staging her death, that was the first story on GH that I had been introduced to along with Jax/Skye, who had one of the most beautiful love scenes to Lamb's Heaven I ever saw. Then Kristina, Alexis' sister died shorty after that, then Brenda's return and so forth.

All this being said Port Charles was my soap, I loved Livvie/Tess and her with Jack was my bread and butter. She was amazing. I watched Naked Eyes and never looked back.

So yeah I was a total ABC baby.

I watched some Passions and Days around 2002/2003 but I didn't really start watching full time until 2006 or so.

[London]

Y&R and B&B and then as I got older I told my mom we were no longer watching B&B, but she didn't listen to me then... she does now.