Questions to Ask Older Generations
Questions about how daily life actually worked in an earlier era: wages and rent, how people met, how news travelled, what was expected of you at sixteen, and what each generation got blamed for.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What did your first rent cost, and what were you earning at the time?
Why ask it
Two numbers together are far more revealing than either alone, and most people remember both exactly. It moves the conversation past nostalgia into something you can actually compare with your own situation.
How did you find your first job, and who did you have to talk to?
Why ask it
Walking in, a notice in a window, a word from an uncle: hiring ran on presence and contacts rather than applications. Ask whether anyone asked about qualifications, and the answer is often no.
How did people meet each other before phones and dating apps?
Why ask it
Dance halls, church, work, the street you lived on and family introductions each came with rules about chaperones and timing. It is one of the few topics where they know they hold something you cannot look up.
What did you do when you needed to reach someone urgently?
Why ask it
Telegrams, a neighbour's telephone, a shared party line and knocking on doors were all normal, and the delays shaped how people planned. Ask what happened when there was bad news to pass on.
How did news get into your house?
Why ask it
Whether it arrived by paper, radio, a single television in a front room or word of mouth changed how much of the world anyone saw. Ask how long it took to hear about something that happened elsewhere.
What did you have to save up for, and how long did it take?
Why ask it
Instalment plans, layaway and saving in a tin were how large purchases happened, and the waiting was ordinary rather than a hardship story. The specific object and the number of months is the useful part.
How did you get around before you had a car, if you ever had one?
Why ask it
Bus routes and rail lines that no longer exist tell you how a whole area was shaped, and how far people considered walkable. Ask how old they were when they first sat in a car.
What happened when someone got ill, and what did seeing a doctor cost?
Why ask it
Home visits, hospital wards, treatments no longer used and paying directly are all within living memory. Keep this one plain and unhurried, since it often leads into a death in the family.
How were children disciplined at school and at home?
Why ask it
Practices that were routine then are now prohibited, and hearing them described without outrage is useful historical detail. Listen rather than reacting, and ask what was considered going too far even at the time.
What was expected of you at sixteen that is not expected of anyone now?
Why ask it
Full-time work, wages handed to a parent, care of younger siblings, military service: the list is longer than most people expect. Ask what they were not allowed to do, which is just as different.
What was expected of women in your family and at work?
Why ask it
Rules about leaving a job on marriage, bank accounts, mortgages and who could be in a pub varied by place and decade and were often unwritten. Ask what they thought of it at the time, not just what the rule was.
What did people your age argue with their parents about?
Why ask it
The friction points, hair, music, hours, money, who you were seeing, are recognisable enough to be funny and specific enough to be informative. It also gets them describing themselves as young rather than as an authority.
What did your generation get blamed for?
Why ask it
Every cohort has been called soft, spoiled or reckless by the one before, and hearing that from them tends to defuse the same argument in the present. Ask whether they think any of it was fair.
What was the first machine that changed how your household lived?
Why ask it
A washing machine, a refrigerator, a telephone or a car usually changed hours of labour rather than just convenience, and the person who benefited most was often their mother. Ask who in the house used it and who did not.
Which news event do you remember exactly where you were for?
Why ask it
Ask for the location rather than the opinion, and you get the scene: who told them, what room, what happened next. This is the kind of detail no archive holds.
What did people take as obvious then that turned out to be wrong?
Why ask it
Answers can range from medical advice to how children should be raised to who was fit for which work. Someone willing to answer honestly is telling you they have revised their own views, which is worth acknowledging.
What has been lost that you would want back, and what are you glad is gone?
Why ask it
The pairing keeps this from becoming a complaint about modern life, and the second half is often more emphatic than the first. Nobody who lived through it is sentimental about everything.
What do you think we have easier, and what have we got harder?
Why ask it
Most older people are more generous on this than younger people expect, particularly about housing costs and job security. If the answer is that everything is easier now, ask specifically about rent and about work.
What do you think my generation has right?
Why ask it
Reversing the usual direction of advice tends to produce a considered answer, often about mental health, work boundaries or talking about difficult things openly. It also makes the rest of the conversation less defensive.
If nobody else wrote it down, what would you want recorded about your generation?
Why ask it
This asks them to speak for more than themselves, which most people find easier than talking about their own life. Expect a correction to whatever story they think is being told about their era.
Talking Across Generations
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Getting Detail Instead of Nostalgia
Anchor to Numbers and Objects
Wages, rent, the price of a loaf, the make of the first car: concrete anchors produce accurate memories where general questions produce sentiment. They also give you something you can check later.
Ask How, Not What It Was Like
How did you pay for that, how did you find out, who did you have to ask. Process questions get you the mechanics of a vanished world, which is the part nobody has written down.
Pin Down the Year
Ask how old they were rather than which year it was, then work it out yourself. People remember their own age reliably and dates less so.
Ask About the Ordinary
Everyone asks about the war, the famous event, the disaster. Almost nobody asks about laundry day, Sunday afternoons or what was in the kitchen cupboard, which is where the real difference shows.
When You Disagree
- Separate the account from the endorsement; asking how something worked is not agreeing that it was right
- If a view lands badly, ask what they thought at the time and what changed, rather than correcting them
- Decide in advance what you will not let pass, and say it once, calmly, then move on
- Avoid current party politics if your aim is the history; it reliably ends the useful part of the conversation
- Do not treat one person as a spokesperson for an entire generation, including when they volunteer for the role
- Remember they are describing rules they lived under as well as attitudes they held
If You Are Recording for a Project or the Family
- Ask permission for the recording and for what you plan to do with it, separately
- Say at the start of the recording who is speaking, who is asking and the date
- Ask them to spell names and place names aloud, since these are what future readers need most
- Keep questions open and singular; two questions at once gets you an answer to one of them
- Note where they were unsure, rather than tidying an uncertain memory into a fact
- Check dates against a public record afterwards, and keep both versions rather than overwriting theirs
- Send them a copy, and honour any part they ask you to leave out