Questions to Ask Your Parents About Their Life
These are interview questions to ask parents about their life, whether you are a grown child with a recorder on the table or a student with a family interview to hand in. The 54 questions follow a life in the order it was lived: childhood, starting out, marriage and children, hard times and looking back, then a closing group for the family record. Asked in that order, they get you the story in your parent's own words while they can still tell it.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Childhood
When and where were you born, and what were you told about that day?
Why ask it
A good first question for a recording, because it puts the date and the place on the record in their own voice. The second half usually brings a story that was handed down to them: the weather, who was sent for, what nearly went wrong.
What was the house you grew up in like, room by room?
Why ask it
Walking through a place gives an older memory something to hold on to, so this often produces more detail than asking what their childhood was like. Names of neighbours, smells and street layouts arrive with it.
What were your parents actually like, day to day?
Why ask it
Your grandparents tend to survive in family talk as a few fixed anecdotes. Asking about ordinary days gets past those to temper, habits and how the household ran, which is where you may recognise something of your own upbringing.
Who else lived in the house, and where did you come among the children?
Why ask it
Birth order, or a grandmother in the back bedroom, explains a good deal about who got the attention and who got the chores. Take down every name and rough age while you are here, since brothers and sisters who died young are often missing from the family's usual telling.
What did your family have to worry about when you were young?
Why ask it
The pressures behind a childhood, whether money, illness, a war or a move, often explain decisions your parent made much later. Some of it was never said in front of the children, so they may be piecing it together as they answer.
What do you know about your own grandparents, and where the family was before them?
Why ask it
This is as far back as living memory reaches, and it is where a family tree or a heritage assignment gets its oldest names. Have them separate what they saw for themselves from what they were told, because the two blend together over the years.
What was school like for you, and how far did you go?
Why ask it
How far someone went in school was often settled by money, or by what was expected of a boy or a girl, so ask who made the call to stop or carry on. A parent who left early may never have said how they felt about it.
What were you expected to do for the family before you were grown?
Why ask it
Minding younger children, serving in a shop, translating for a grandparent, handing over a wage: the answer shows how early their childhood ended. Have them put an age on when it began.
What was an ordinary dinner in your house, and what changed on a holiday?
Why ask it
Food is an easy thing to describe, and it carries who cooked, who sat where and what the family could afford. The holiday half tells you which of your own traditions were theirs first, and which ones stopped with them.
What did you do with a free afternoon when no adult was watching?
Why ask it
This is where the neighbourhood comes alive, down to the river, the empty lot or the friend whose house everyone ended up at. It is also a lighter question to reach for after the one about family worries.
What is the first big news story you remember from when you were small?
Why ask it
It dates their childhood for anyone who listens later, and it shows how news reached the house: a radio, a newspaper, adults talking in low voices. Where they were when they heard is a detail worth getting.
Starting out
What sort of teenager were you, and what did your parents never find out?
Why ask it
Most parents have kept this from their children on principle, and a recorder on the table sometimes loosens the principle. Take whatever version they offer without holding it up against the rules they later set for you.
What did you want to be, and what happened to that plan?
Why ask it
The gap between the plan and the life is where you learn what was chosen and what was simply not available. Listen for whether the change was a decision, an accident, or someone else's requirement.
When did you leave home, and what did you take with you?
Why ask it
The leaving is a clean scene to describe: a suitcase, a train, a parent at the door or not at the door. What they packed and how much money was in their pocket fixes the moment better than asking how they felt.
What was your first proper job, and what did it pay?
Why ask it
The figure means little on its own, so ask what it bought: a week's rent, a bus fare, a winter coat. That turns a number into a picture of how they lived at that age.
What work did you do for longest, and what did an ordinary day of it involve?
Why ask it
Children tend to know a parent's job title and almost nothing about the hours inside it. Have them begin from when the alarm went off, and you will hear about colleagues, tools and routines that never came home.
Who gave you a chance at work, and who stood in your way?
Why ask it
A working life is usually told as a string of decisions when it was really a string of people. Get the spelling of each name, because the same ones tend to come back in later answers.
Where have you lived, in order, and what took you from each place to the next?
Why ask it
This gives the interview its backbone: a run of addresses with a reason attached to every move. Jot the places down as they go and you have something to hang each later story on.
When was money tightest, and how did you manage?
Why ask it
People are often prouder of how they got through a lean year than of anything they earned afterwards. If they would rather not give figures, ask what they went without.
Was there a time your life nearly went a completely different way?
Why ask it
Near misses, a job not taken, a city not moved to, a relationship ended, are often the stories nobody in the family knows. They also tend to be the ones a parent most enjoys telling.
Who were you closest to outside the family, and what happened to them?
Why ask it
Friendships get lost from family history entirely, and a parent's oldest friend often knows a version of them you have never met. This is also a practical question if you are trying to trace people later.
Marriage and children
How did you two meet, and what did you honestly think of each other at first?
Why ask it
Asking for the honest first impression gets you past the polished version that gets retold at anniversaries. If your parents are both present, ask them separately; the accounts rarely match.
What made you decide to marry, and did anyone try to talk you out of it?
Why ask it
The deciding moment is seldom the proposal. It is more often a conversation, a job in another town or a parent's opinion, and the objections show how the two families saw each other. If your parent never married, ask the same thing about setting up home with someone or choosing to go it alone.
What was the first year of your marriage like?
Why ask it
The first year holds the money, the in-laws and the adjusting, which the family version usually skips. If the question feels too large, where they lived and what the rent was make a good way in.
What was it like when I was born, and what surprised you about having a child?
Why ask it
You get your own beginning as they experienced it, including the fear and the exhaustion. The surprises are more revealing than the joy, because they show what they had expected parenthood to be.
What was I like as a small child, and what did you worry about with me?
Why ask it
You have only ever seen yourself from the inside, and your parent watched from the first day. The worry is what brings out a particular story, a late talker or a child who would not go to school, where a plain description would have been a few adjectives.
What kind of parent did you think you would be, and where were you wrong?
Why ask it
This invites an honest reckoning without accusing them of anything. Some parents will use it to say something they have wanted to say for years, and it is worth staying quiet when they do.
How did you divide the earning, the housework and the children between you, and who settled that?
Why ask it
Whether it was talked over or simply assumed says a lot about the period and about the two of them. A parent who raised you alone can answer it as who helped, and what that help cost.
What did you set out to do differently from your own parents?
Why ask it
Many parents carry one thing they swore never to repeat, and will tell you whether they managed it. It lands best soon after the Childhood questions, when what they said about their own mother and father is fresh for both of you.
What were you going through that we, as children, did not know about?
Why ask it
The answer may be something large, such as a job loss, a diagnosis, a marriage in trouble or a debt. Start with how they kept it from you, which is easier to talk about than the thing itself.
What would you like me to understand about your marriage that I could not have seen as a child?
Why ask it
Children watch a marriage from knee height and tend to keep that view for life. Put this to one parent alone, and if the marriage ended, make it plain you want their account and not a verdict on the other parent.
What did you do with yourself once we had all left home?
Why ask it
It is the one chapter you were, by definition, not there for. Some parents describe relief and some describe a year of not knowing what the evenings were for, and either belongs in the record.
Hard times
What was the hardest decision you ever had to make?
Why ask it
Hard decisions carry the values that were actually in play, as opposed to the ones people list when asked about values. Who they talked it over with tells you who they trusted.
Whose death changed you most, and how did you keep going afterwards?
Why ask it
Let them choose the person, because it may not be the loss you expect. Ask about the weeks afterwards in practical terms, who cooked and who turned up, and stop when they say they have had enough.
When were you most frightened, and what did you do about it?
Why ask it
Fear is often easier to describe than sadness, and the story usually has a clear start and finish. You may hear about an accident, a night in a hospital corridor or a letter that arrived, told aloud for the first time.
What did you do that took more nerve than anyone realised?
Why ask it
Quiet courage goes unrecorded: leaving a job, reporting something, emigrating, going back to study at forty. Find out who knew at the time; it may have been nobody.
Which event in the news turned out to change your own life?
Why ask it
A strike, a war, a recession, a new law or a factory closing lands differently in a kitchen than it does in a history book. What was different in the household a month later is the part no history book has.
Has faith mattered in your life, and has that changed over the years?
Why ask it
Ask it as a question about their life and not as an argument about belief, whatever your own views are. Where they found it, lost it or came back to it tends to line up with the hardest years.
Was there a time you needed help and found it hard to ask?
Why ask it
Many parents present themselves to their children as people who coped. Hearing who they finally turned to, or that they turned to no one, changes how you read the years around it.
Looking back
What was the happiest stretch of your life, and did you know it at the time?
Why ask it
The second half is the real question. A parent who did not know it at the time will often say what they wish they had noticed, and that is advice you did not have to ask for.
What did you believe strongly at thirty that you no longer believe?
Why ask it
Naming an age stops the answer becoming a general statement about times changing. Swap in whatever age they were when you were small, and you may hear a rule you grew up under being quietly taken back.
What do you regret, and would you actually change it?
Why ask it
Most people regret something they would not undo, and asking whether they would change it lets them say so. Do not follow it with reassurance; let them finish the thought.
What are you proudest of that has nothing to do with us?
Why ask it
Parents default to their children when asked about pride, which hides most of a life. This question is often the one that gets you their work, their volunteering or something they built alone.
What do people usually get wrong about you?
Why ask it
Everyone carries a family reputation: the strict one, the worrier, the one who never minded. Here a parent gets to correct theirs on the record, and you may find you are one of the people who had it wrong.
What do you know now that would have helped you at my age?
Why ask it
Tying it to your own age keeps the advice concrete, and it works for a student of fifteen as well as a child of fifty. How they came to learn it is the part you will remember, so get that story too.
Who helped you along the way and was never properly thanked?
Why ask it
It is often a teacher, an aunt, a landlady or a first boss, and saying the name aloud is a kind of thanks. If the person is still living, offer to help your parent write to them.
What do you still want to do?
Why ask it
It treats the future as still open, which matters to people who are used to being asked only about the past. The answer is sometimes small enough that you can help with it this year.
For the record
Which of your habits or traditions would you like us to keep going?
Why ask it
Asking them to choose is more useful than promising to keep everything, and it turns a sentimental question into an instruction you can follow. Write down the specifics, including recipes and who else knows them.
What should I know about our family that nobody has written down?
Why ask it
The practical family record often exists only in one person's head: illnesses that run in the family, an adoption, a name that was changed, where people are buried. Note who else could confirm each part, because a family hands down its mistakes along with its facts.
Which photographs or belongings should we go through together while you can tell me what they are?
Why ask it
A box of unlabelled photographs means little to the next generation, and a ring or a medal with no story is only an object. Give this a visit of its own and keep the recorder running, because each thing they pick up tends to start a story.
Who else should I talk to about your life, and what should I ask them?
Why ask it
A sibling, a cousin or an old friend holds the parts your parent was too young to remember or too modest to tell. Asking permission first also means nobody feels you went behind their back.
If a great-grandchild hears this recording one day, what would you like to say to them?
Why ask it
It reminds you both who the recording is really for, and some parents speak more freely to a listener who has not been born yet. Give them time; this may be the minute of the recording that gets played most.
What have I not asked about that belongs in the story of your life?
Why ask it
Your list reflects what you already knew to be curious about. This hands them the microphone, and the gaps they fill, a first marriage, a year abroad, a business that failed, are ones you could not have asked for.
Is there something you have always wanted to tell me and have not?
Why ask it
Leave this until last, and leave a long silence after it. Sometimes the answer is nothing, and sometimes it is the reason the whole conversation was worth having.
Recording a parent's story
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Planning the interview
Say what the interview is for
A school assignment, a family history and a recording for the grandchildren each need different things. Before the first question, tell your parent which one this is, how long you expect to take and who will hear or read the result.
If it is a school assignment
Eight to ten questions is usually plenty for a written page or a short presentation. Take two or three from Childhood, a couple from Starting out and one from Looking back, and write the date and place of the interview at the top in case your teacher wants it. Check the assignment sheet for anything required that is not in this list.
One group at a time
The six groups run in the order of a life. Finish one before you open the next, however many visits that takes: Childhood, where the events are long settled, first, and Hard times only once the two of you have a couple of easy sessions behind you.
Offer the questions in advance
Some parents answer best when surprised and others want time to think. Offer to send three or four questions the day before; the ones who prepare sometimes arrive with a photograph or a letter you did not know existed.
Keep For the record until last
The closing group asks about photographs, other people to talk to and things left unsaid. It works once your parent has heard themselves tell the rest and can see what is still missing.
How to capture it
Ask permission, then use a phone voice memo
A phone lying on the table is easier to forget about than a camera pointed at someone. Ask before you press record, and ask again later if the recording is going anywhere you did not mention, such as a teacher, a family group chat or a memorial.
Name the file properly, straight away
Date, who is speaking and the topic. A file called New Recording 14 is hard to find again and means nothing to whoever inherits the phone, and a copy stored somewhere other than that phone is worth the two minutes.
Two or three questions a visit
An hour spent on two or three questions produces more than a run through a whole group, so expect Childhood alone to take several visits. It also keeps each recording short enough that someone will actually listen to it later.
Put photographs and documents on the table
A photograph produces names, dates and stories that direct questions do not reach. Note the names while they are telling you, in soft pencil on the back or on a slip kept with the print, because nobody else may be able to supply them later.
When they deflect or repeat themselves
- If you get the same polished anecdote again, ask for something adjacent: what the room smelled like, who else was there, what happened the next day.
- A refusal is information. Note the topic, move on, and try once more months later rather than pressing in the moment.
- Yes or no answers usually mean the question was too big. Swap it for a smaller one about a single day or a single object.
- If dates and the order of events have become shaky, ask about routines instead: the walk to school, what Sunday looked like, who did the washing up.
- Interview each parent separately at least once. In the same room, one of them often defers to the other's version.
Common pitfalls
Correcting their version
You may remember an event differently, or know a date is wrong. Let the recording stand as their account and add your note separately, because arguing about accuracy usually ends the storytelling for that day.
Filling every silence
The pause before a difficult answer is the answer arriving. Count to five before you speak again.
Turning the interview into a settlement
If you are hoping for an apology, say so directly on another occasion. Mixing the two means you get neither the history nor the conversation you wanted.
Waiting for a better time
Health and memory do not give notice. A short recording made this month is worth more than the thorough project you plan for next year.