Fun Questions to Ask Your Mom
Twenty light questions about your mom as she is now: what she eats, what she turns up in the car, where she would drive with a free afternoon. Nothing here asks her to dig up your childhood or confess to anything, which makes it the set to use when other people are in the room or when the past is difficult ground. If you do want the old stories, the funny sets go looking for those on purpose.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What's your idea of a perfect day with nothing in the diary?
Why ask it
A good opener because it costs nothing to answer and she does not have to remember anything. Listen for whether the day she describes has other people in it, which tells you more than a direct question about loneliness ever would.
What's the best meal you've eaten in the last year?
Why ask it
The time limit is what makes this answerable. Left open it becomes a lifetime search and she will say she cannot choose, whereas one year produces a specific table with specific people at it.
What song do you turn up when it comes on?
Why ask it
Almost everyone has one and almost nobody gets asked. Ask what she does while it is playing, and be ready for the answer to be a car, a kitchen, or a decade you were not around for.
Which room in the house is actually yours, and what's in it?
Why ask it
Most mothers have colonised one chair, one corner or one windowsill without ever calling it theirs. What she keeps there is a short inventory of what she likes when nobody needs anything from her.
What do you do when nobody else is home?
Why ask it
Light, and it gets at a version of her the family never sees. The answers are usually small and specific: a particular programme, the radio at a volume nobody else tolerates, lunch eaten standing up.
What are you reading or watching at the moment?
Why ask it
The easiest question here and the most repeatable, since the answer changes every few weeks. It also gives you something to follow up on next time without having to invent a reason to call.
What do you always keep in the house, no matter what?
Why ask it
Everybody has two or three items they refuse to run out of, and the reason is often older than the habit. Ask when she started doing that and the answer occasionally arrives with a story attached.
Which place you've been would you go back to tomorrow?
Why ask it
Better than asking about a favorite holiday, because tomorrow forces a choice rather than a list. What she names is also the single most useful thing to know if you are ever planning a trip with her.
What's the best present you've ever been given?
Why ask it
The good answers are rarely expensive and frequently homemade, which is worth knowing before the next birthday. Ask who gave it, since the giver is usually the point of the story.
What's your favorite time of day now?
Why ask it
The word now matters, because it moves with a life. Early mornings, the hour before anyone else is up, or late evening each say something different about how her days are currently shaped.
Which thing you cook are you quietly proud of?
Why ask it
Cooking is one of the few areas where mothers will accept a compliment, and quietly proud gives her permission to pick something without seeming boastful. Ask her to teach you that one rather than a recipe you chose.
What do you always pack that nobody else would think to bring?
Why ask it
A small, cheerful question that reveals an entire approach to the world. Whatever she names, there is usually one trip behind it where she did not have it and has never forgotten.
Beach, mountains or a city, and why that one?
Why ask it
A forced choice keeps it quick, and the why is where the actual answer lives. People pick the setting that matches what they want a holiday to do for them, which is rarely the same thing across a family.
What's the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
Why ask it
Almost everyone has one of these and almost nobody has been asked for it. The stories are short, warm, and completely safe to tell in front of anybody, which is why this one is good at a full table.
What smell takes you straight back somewhere?
Why ask it
Smell reaches memories that questions cannot, so this gets a vivid answer without asking her to reflect on anything. Expect a kitchen, a garden, a shop, or a person, delivered faster than any other answer here.
What's a small thing that reliably puts you in a good mood?
Why ask it
Small is doing the work, since it rules out the large answers about family and health that she would give by reflex. What she names is usually something you could arrange for her without much effort at all.
Which season do you actually like best?
Why ask it
The word actually invites her to disagree with whatever the family assumes about her. Ask what she likes doing in it, because the season is really a stand-in for a set of days she enjoys.
If someone handed you a car and a free afternoon, where would you drive?
Why ask it
Keeps the scope small enough that she answers honestly rather than reaching for somewhere impressive. Many mothers name a place forty minutes away that they have not been to in years, which is an easy thing to fix.
What would you like more of in an ordinary week?
Why ask it
Aims at the week rather than the life, so it stays light and still gets something true. The answer is usually company, quiet or time outside, and all three are things you can do something about.
What's something you'd like us to do together that we never have?
Why ask it
A closer that leaves you with a plan rather than a feeling. Ask for something small enough to happen this year, then put a date on it before the conversation ends, or it stays a nice idea.
Keeping it easy
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to ask
- Two or three questions in a call is plenty. Working through the whole list turns a chat into an interview, and she will notice.
- Answer everything you ask. A conversation where you also name your own song and your own perfect day gets far better material back than one where you only collect.
- Ask what happened next rather than moving on. Even the light questions have a second half, and that is usually where the story is.
- These are the safe ones to use with grandchildren, in-laws or siblings in the room. Nothing on this list asks her to admit to anything.
If a light question lands somewhere heavy
The empty answer
Asking what she does purely for herself occasionally gets a blank, and the blank is real information. Do not fill it in on her behalf or rush to suggest hobbies. Ask what she used to do, and leave the rest for another day.
A place she cannot go back to
The travel questions can arrive at somewhere she visited with a person who has since died, or somewhere she can no longer manage physically. Stay in the story rather than apologising for asking. Apologising is what teaches her to give the flat answer next time.
What she wants more of
If the honest answer to what she would like more of is company, hear it as a request rather than a complaint. It is the one answer on this list that asks something of you, and it is worth more than the other nineteen put together.
Making them count
- Act on one answer within the month. The favorite meal, the place she would drive to and the thing she wants to do together are all small enough to actually arrange.
- Keep the repeatable ones. What she is reading, her best week and her favorite time of day can be asked every call and never wear out.
- Ask her to teach you the dish she named. It gets you an afternoon together and a recipe, which is better than either on its own.
- If a light question opens something she clearly wants to talk about, follow it and abandon the list. The list is only there for when nothing else has started.