Questions to ask your parents about their life, and how to keep the answers

Many people who have lost a parent say the same thing: I wish I had asked more. Not about the dates, which you can find in documents, but about the stories. What their mother's kitchen was like. How they really met. What they were afraid of at your age. Who they were before they were your parents.

The good news is that many parents and grandparents are glad to be asked. Being interested in someone's life is one of the kindest things you can do for them. Below are questions for the conversation, grouped by period of life, some advice on how to ask them, and how to keep the answers so they don't end up in a forgotten folder.

How to ask

• Ask for stories, not facts. "Tell me about the house you grew up in" opens more than "Where did you live?"
• Start light. Childhood, places, food, games. Leave the hard years for later, when you are both warmed up, or for another day.
• Follow the energy. If one question lights them up, stay there. StoryCorps, which has been recording conversations like this for years, advises using your questions "as a guide, not a script".
• Ask "and then?" and "how did that feel?" These follow-ups bring out the best parts. Sometimes a person needs permission to go on; "tell me more" is often enough.
• Ask for details of the senses. Sounds, smells, what the room looked like. That is where a story comes alive.
• Let silences be. Don't rush to fill a pause; something important may come after it.
• Bring photos. An old photo answers the question "where do I begin?" on its own.
• Keep sessions short. Thirty to forty-five minutes is plenty. You can come back next week.

Childhood

1. What is your earliest memory?
2. Describe the house or flat you grew up in. Which room was yours?
3. What did your street or village look, sound and smell like?
4. What were your parents like when you were small? What did they do for work?
5. What did a normal day look like when you were eight?
6. What did you eat at home? Is there a dish that still tastes like childhood?
7. What games did you play, and with whom?
8. Who was your best friend? What happened to them?
9. What were you afraid of as a child?
10. What did you get in trouble for?
11. Were there grandparents in your life? What do you remember about them?
12. What was a holiday or celebration like in your family?

School and growing up

13. What kind of student were you?
14. Which teacher do you still remember, and why?
15. What music did you listen to as a teenager?
16. What did you want to be when you grew up?
17. What did your parents expect from you? Did you agree?
18. When did you first feel like an adult?
19. What was the bravest or most foolish thing you did when you were young?
20. What was happening in the world then, and how did it touch your family?

Love and family

21. Who was your first love?
22. How did you meet Mum / Dad? What did you think of them at first?
23. What was your wedding like, or the day you decided to be together?
24. What was hard in the first years together?
25. What do you remember about the day I was born?
26. What was I like as a baby? As a child?
27. What surprised you most about being a parent?
28. What did you want to do differently from your own parents?
29. Is there something about our family history that you've never told me?

Work and the world

30. What was your first job? How much did you earn, and what did you spend it on?
31. Which work were you proudest of?
32. Was there a job or a chance you turned down? Do you regret it?
33. Did you ever move to a new city or country? What was the first week like?
34. Which historical events did you live through? Where were you when you heard?
35. How did life change between your childhood and now? What do you miss?

The hard years

Ask these gently, and only if they want to talk. It is fine to stop.

36. What was the hardest period of your life?
37. What, or who, got you through it?
38. Who do you miss most?
39. Was there a time you were truly afraid?
40. Is there something you'd like to be forgiven for, or that you have forgiven?
41. What did you lose that you never got back?

Turning points

42. What were the three or four moments that changed the direction of your life?
43. What decision are you most glad you made?
44. What would your life have been like if you had chosen differently?
45. When were you happiest?
46. Which year would you like to live again?
47. Who influenced you the most, and how?

Looking back

48. What are you most proud of?
49. What do you know now that you wish you had known at twenty?
50. What do you think matters most in life?
51. What has surprised you about getting older?
52. What do you still want to do?
53. How would you like to be remembered?
54. Is there anything you want your grandchildren to know?

Small things that become big later

55. What is your favourite song, and what does it remind you of?
56. How do you make your best dish? Can you show me?
57. What is a saying or a joke our family always repeats? Where does it come from?
58. What is the best gift you ever received?
59. What is something about you that would surprise me?
60. What question do you wish I had asked you?

Record the conversation

Write things down if you like, but record the voice. In twenty years you will want their words, and you will want even more the way they said them: the accent, the laugh, the pause before a name. Your phone is enough. Ask permission first, put the phone down where you can both forget it, and choose a quiet room.

If you live far apart, a video call works too. Many phones can record the screen; tell them you are recording.

Keep the answers where you can find them

The usual fate of family interviews is a file called "Recording 47" somewhere on an old phone. A few habits keep that from happening:

• One story per entry. Cut a long conversation into its stories: how they met, the move, the war, the first job.
• Give each story its date, even an approximate one. Put together, they become your parent's life on a line, and you'll see your own life start in the middle of it.
• Attach the photos they showed you, and the song they named.
• Write down names and places while they are still there to spell them.
• Make a copy that doesn't depend on one phone or one app.

In Lifeline you can do all of this as memories on your own line: a memory can be dated back to 1900, so your mother's childhood can sit decades before your own birth, with her photos, her recorded voice and the song she named. (There is no separate profile for another person; you tell their story in the memory's own words.) Free export gives you a ZIP with all the texts, photos and recordings, so the family archive doesn't depend on any one app, ours included.

Respect what is private

These are your parents' memories, not only yours. Some stories they will want shared with the whole family; some they told only you. Ask them. You can keep the most personal ones locked: in Lifeline, locking a memory with a master password encrypts its text on your phone (the title, date, emotions, song, photos and recordings are not encrypted).

If you want more questions, StoryCorps keeps a long public list of great questions, grouped for grandparents, parents, work, love, illness and remembering someone.

And don't wait for the perfect day to start. Call this weekend and ask one question: "What is your earliest memory?" That is usually enough to begin.

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