All My Children is a light-hearted soap—perhaps the only light-hearted soap on the air. It may also be characterized as a home-and-family soap, in the doctor-lawyer formula. (p. 33)

In its home-and-family orientation, All My Children very much resembles traditional soaps. But there are differences in tone. All My Children seldom succumbs to dark feelings of loneliness or instability (as does As the World Turns) or to sexual despair (as does Days of Our Lives). On All My Children, there is little serious evil. Bad characters like Phoebe, Erica, Mrs. Lum, or Benny Sago, tend to be fun, or funny. They do not ask much of us. For example, when Phoebe Tyler is left drinking alone on Christmas Eve, she gives a sarcastic, rather maudlin toast. If she pities herself, we don't…. [There] is remarkably little real suffering on All My Children, compared to other soaps—little at...