Questions to Ask Your Dad
For the stage when your father is older and there are conversations worth having while they are still easy. Some are warm and some are practical: what he wants the next few years to look like, where the paperwork is, who he would want called, and anything he has been meaning to say. If you want his life story instead, the thirty question sitting is built for that.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What do you want the next few years to look like?
Why ask it
Starting with what he wants, rather than what might go wrong, sets the tone for everything else. It also tells you what to protect when decisions come up.
What do you enjoy about your life at the moment?
Why ask it
Older parents are often asked about health and rarely about pleasure. The answer is worth knowing and it makes the harder questions easier to reach.
Is there anywhere you still want to go, or anyone you want to see?
Why ask it
This turns vague intentions into something the family can actually help with. Ask what has been stopping it.
What has changed most about your days since you stopped working?
Why ask it
Retirement reshapes a week completely and most fathers are asked about it only in passing. The answer tells you what is missing as well as what is better.
What do you miss about the years when we were all in the house?
Why ask it
It invites him to be sentimental without asking him to be. Expect something ordinary, such as noise, meals or the car being full.
What were you worried about when I was born?
Why ask it
Money, work, and whether he had any idea what he was doing are the common answers, and hearing them is oddly steadying if you are a new parent yourself. It also makes clear how young he was.
Where do you keep the important paperwork, and who should I call first?
Why ask it
Asked once, calmly, this saves an enormous amount of difficulty later. Most fathers are relieved to have been asked rather than offended.
Who are the people in your life I would not know how to contact?
Why ask it
Old friends, former colleagues, people from another town. Getting the names now is far kinder than trying to reconstruct the list later.
Who were your closest friends, and what happened to them?
Why ask it
Men often lose touch with friends over decades without ever discussing it. The answer tells you who he was before he was a father, and sometimes prompts him to make a call he has been putting off.
What would you want to happen if you could no longer manage on your own?
Why ask it
Asking about preferences in advance is easier than deciding under pressure. Let him answer in general terms if that is where he wants to stay.
What do you think about more now than you used to?
Why ask it
Older people notice their own attention shifting and rarely get asked where it has gone. The answer often reaches things he would not raise himself.
What can you not do now that you used to enjoy?
Why ask it
A plain question about loss that most fathers would rather answer than have tiptoed around. It also tells the family what is worth adapting.
What would you like more of from us, and what would you rather we left alone?
Why ask it
Older parents are often helped in ways they did not ask for. Asking directly prevents years of well-meant friction.
What do you wish you had asked your own dad while you could?
Why ask it
This is often the question that opens the rest of the conversation. It also explains why you are asking him now.
What are you proud of that has nothing to do with work or us?
Why ask it
Men are frequently defined by their job and their family and asked about nothing else. Ruling both out forces a different answer, and it is usually the one he most wants to give.
What do you actually enjoy doing with your time now?
Why ask it
The honest answer might be very little, which is worth knowing, particularly after retirement or a bereavement. Vague answers here are sometimes the first sign that his days have emptied out.
Is there anything you've wanted to tell me and haven't?
Why ask it
Leave a long pause. Fathers who have been waiting for an opening will take it, and what comes out is often about health, money, or a family fact you did not know.
Is there anything you would like sorted while you are here to say how?
Why ask it
A house, a tool shed, a set of photographs, a small business. Practical and specific, and it gives him control over the answer.
What of yours would you want your grandchildren to have?
Why ask it
Specific, practical and easier to answer than a question about a will. It often prompts him to explain why the object matters.
What do you want me to remember?
Why ask it
An open ending that lets him choose what matters, whether that is a story, an instruction, or a piece of family history. Write down whatever he says fairly soon afterwards.
How to use these questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Getting a reticent father talking
Side by side beats face to face
Driving, walking, fishing, working on something together: no eye contact and a shared task makes these questions much easier to answer. A formal sit-down conversation across a table gets short answers from a lot of men.
Ask one question, then let it run
Reading from a list changes the register entirely. Bring one question, ask a follow-up about a detail he mentions, and come back another day with the next one.
Start with facts, not feelings
Jobs, houses, streets, and friends are concrete and safe. The questions about what was hard and what he got wrong are far easier to answer an hour into a conversation that started with his first job.
Record it if he will let you
Ask permission and use a phone. People regret not having the voice more than they regret not having the facts, and he will forget the phone is there within a few minutes.
The practical conversation
- Raise it as admin rather than as a discussion about mortality: where documents are, who his doctor is, what he would want if he could not decide for himself.
- Ask what he wants, not what he expects you to arrange. People are much more forthcoming about preferences than about plans.
- Write down account names, professionals, and locations of documents during the conversation, not afterwards from memory.
- If he shuts it down, leave it and try again in a few months. Repeated short attempts work better than one long push.
- Tell your siblings what he said. Most family conflict after a death comes from different children having heard different halves of this conversation.
What to avoid
Reopening old arguments
If there is a specific grievance you need to raise, give it its own conversation. Smuggling it into a question about his childhood turns the whole exchange into a defence.
Therapy vocabulary
Words like boundaries, trauma, and processing will close down a lot of men of an older generation, however accurate they are. Plain questions about what happened and what he thought get much further.
Asking in front of an audience
At a family table he is performing for everyone in the room, particularly his partner and your siblings. These questions are for one-to-one.