Your parents

45 questions to ask your parents about their life

Forty-five questions to ask your parents about their childhood, how they met, raising you and where the family comes from, each with a follow-up question.

By Yosuke Sakurai ·

You’ve known your parents your whole life, and you’ve only ever known them as your parents. Before you, they were children in houses you’ve never seen, teenagers with music you’d laugh at, and two people deciding, for reasons you may never have heard, to build a life together.

These forty-five questions are for meeting those people. They start with your parents’ own childhood, move through how they met and what raising you was really like, and end with what they hope you’ll keep. Each comes with a follow-up. Ask a handful at a time, and follow the answer rather than the list.

If a parent is ill or very old, start with our questions to ask your parents before they die instead. It begins with six questions for when time is short.

Where to start

Pick five: 1, 14, 22, 34 and 44. That’s the house they grew up in, how they met, the day you were born, the family name and what they hope you’ve learned from them. Between them they’ll fill an afternoon.

Their childhood

  1. What was the house you grew up in like? Walk me through it, room by room.Then ask: Which room was yours, and who did you share it with?
  2. What were your own parents like when you were small?Then ask: Which of them are you more like?
  3. What did you do on a summer day when you were ten?Then ask: Who were you with, and where did you go?
  4. What were you good at in school, and what did you dread?Then ask: Was there a teacher who saw something in you?
  5. What did your family argue about?Then ask: How did the arguments usually end?
  6. What chores did you have?Then ask: Which one would you still rather not do?
  7. What did you want to be when you grew up?Then ask: When did that change, and why?

Growing up and leaving home

  1. What were you like as a teenager?Then ask: What would your parents have said you were like?
  2. What music did you play too loud?Then ask: Is there a song that takes you straight back?
  3. Who was your best friend at sixteen?Then ask: What happened to them?
  4. When did you leave home, and where did you go?Then ask: What did you take with you, and what did you leave behind?
  5. What did you buy with your first real paycheck?Then ask: Do you still have it?
  6. What was the biggest risk you took in your twenties?Then ask: Would you take it again?

How they met

If your parents aren’t together, if one of them has died, or if you were raised by a step-parent or by one parent alone, these still work. Ask about whoever they loved.

  1. How did the two of you meet?Then ask: What was your first impression of each other?
  2. Who asked whom out, and where did you go?Then ask: What did you wear?
  3. When did you know it was serious?Then ask: Who did you tell first?
  4. What did your own parents think of them?Then ask: Did that change over time?
  5. How did you decide to marry, or to make a life together?Then ask: Was there a proposal? Tell me everything.
  6. Where was your first home together?Then ask: What did you have, and what did you do without?
  7. What’s the hardest thing you’ve been through as a couple?Then ask: What got you through it?Go gently
  8. What does the other one do that still makes you laugh?Then ask: When did you first notice it?

Becoming parents

This is the part of the story only they can tell, because you were there and don’t remember any of it.

  1. What do you remember about the day I was born?Then ask: Who was there, and who did you call first?
  2. How did you choose my name?Then ask: What were the other names on the list?
  3. What did you think being a parent would be like?Then ask: What surprised you most?
  4. What was I like as a baby?Then ask: What kept you up at night, apart from me?
  5. What did I do as a child that you still laugh about?Then ask: Did I ever know you were laughing?
  6. What was the hardest stage of raising me?Then ask: What did you try that actually worked?
  7. What did you worry about most for me?Then ask: Do you still worry about it?
  8. What was money like when we were small?Then ask: What did you go without that we never noticed?

Work and everyday life

  1. What did your work actually involve, day to day?Then ask: What did nobody see about it?
  2. What’s the job you were proudest of?Then ask: Who taught you to do it well?
  3. What did a normal Saturday look like in our house?Then ask: Whose idea were our family rituals?
  4. Which of your friends did we kids never really get to know?Then ask: What were they like, and what did you do together?

Where the family comes from

  1. Where does our family name come from?Then ask: Has the spelling ever changed?
  2. What do you know about your grandparents?Then ask: Who in the family would know more?
  3. Which family stories get told at every gathering?Then ask: How much of them is true?
  4. What in this house has a story behind it?Then ask: Who should have it one day?
  5. Which recipes came down through your side of the family?Then ask: Will you show me how to make one?

If they came from another country

If your parents immigrated, their story includes a whole country you may know only from visits, or not at all. Write place names in their language as well as yours, and ask how to say them.

  1. What was the place you grew up called, and how do you spell it in your language?Then ask: What would I see if I stood there today?
  2. When did you decide to leave, and who made the decision?Then ask: Who did you leave behind?
  3. What was your first week in the new country like?Then ask: What seemed strange, and what did you miss most?
  4. What do you hope we’ll keep from where you came from?Then ask: The language, the food, the holidays: which matters most to you?

Looking back

  1. What are you proudest of as a family?Then ask: Is there anything you’d do differently?
  2. What do you hope we’ve learned from you?Then ask: Is there something you wish we’d learned that we didn’t?
  3. What do you still want to do?Then ask: How can I help you do it?

How to ask your parents

Ask them apart and together

Together, they prompt and correct each other, which is perfect for how-they-met. Apart, each tells their own version and says things they wouldn’t in front of the other. Keep both versions. The differences are part of the story.

One theme a session

Pick a theme, like their childhood home, their first jobs or the year you were born, and stay with it for half an hour. One theme goes deep. A tour of their whole life skims everything.

Bring the photo albums

Old photos do half the work. Ask who took the picture, what happened just before, and who’s missing from it.

Don’t turn it into a reckoning

Questions about how they raised you can drift towards old grievances. If you want to talk about those, choose another day. This conversation is for listening.

Write it down the same day

Names, places, dates and spellings fade fast, even for the person who heard them. Note them that evening, along with anything you want to ask next time.

Keeping the answers

Record with permission, label each recording with the date and the theme, and share what you write back with them. Parents often remember more when they read their own words.

Our guide to interviewing your parents about their life covers recording, transcribing and turning the answers into stories the family can read. And if your grandparents are still here, ask them about your parents too: our questions to ask your grandparents include a whole section on what your parent was like as a child.

If they’d rather tell it themselves

Some parents would rather tell their story at their own pace than be interviewed. Ever Journal was made for that. Eve, its AI biographer, drafts a first chapter from a few basics, then asks one question at a time about the biggest gap in the story. She writes only from what she’s told, and marks what she doesn’t know instead of inventing it. Help them sign up and answer the first few questions together. The story stays private to their account.

Common questions

What are good questions to ask your parents about their life?

Specific ones. Instead of ‘What was your childhood like?’, ask what was in their kitchen, what they did on a summer day at ten, or how they met each other. Questions about places, people and first times get stories; big general questions get summaries.

Should I ask my parents these questions together or separately?

Both, if you can. Together, they prompt and correct each other, which is perfect for how-they-met stories. Apart, each tells their own version and says things they wouldn’t in front of the other. The versions rarely match, and both are worth keeping.

How do I get my parents to open up about their past?

Start small and concrete, bring old photos, and stay with one theme at a time rather than their whole life. Share something of your own first. Follow whatever they bring up, and stop while it’s still enjoyable, so they’ll want to do it again.

What if my parents don’t like talking about the past?

Some parents find the past painful, and some just don’t think it’s interesting. Try objects and recipes instead of questions, ask about other people rather than themselves, or write one question in a card and let them answer in their own time. If a subject is closed, leave it closed.

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