70 questions to ask your mom about her life, and how to record the answers

When she was a girl (questions 1 to 10)

1. Where did you grow up? Walk me through the house, room by room.
2. What did your bedroom look like, and who did you share it with?
3. What did you play, and who did you play with?
4. What was a normal school day like for you?
5. Which subject were you good at, and which one did you dread?
6. What were you not allowed to do that your friends could?
7. What did you want to be when you grew up?
8. Who was the first friend you really loved?
9. What smell or sound still takes you straight back to childhood?
10. What is one day from when you were little that you would live again?

Her own mother and family (questions 11 to 20)

11. What was your mother like when you were small?
12. What did she teach you without ever saying it?
13. What did the two of you argue about?
14. Which of her sayings do you still hear in your head?
15. What do you know about her mother, your grandmother?
16. Who in the family did you feel closest to, and why?
17. Which relative had the best stories? Tell me one.
18. What did holidays look like in your house?
19. Which family recipe came from your mother? Walk me through it.
20. In what ways are you like your mother, and in what ways did you choose to be different?

Her life before you (questions 21 to 30)

21. What were you like as a teenager?
22. What was your first job, and what did you buy with the money?
23. When did you leave home, and where did you go?
24. Describe the first place that was all yours.
25. Who were your friends in your twenties, and what did you do on weekends?
26. What was the bravest thing you did before you had children?
27. How did you meet my father, or the people who mattered most to you then?
28. What did you think your life would look like at forty?
29. What did you love doing that you had to stop?
30. If you could tell your twenty-year-old self one thing, what would it be?

Becoming a mother (questions 31 to 40)

31. How did you feel when you found out you were expecting me?
32. What do you remember about the day I was born?
33. How did you choose my name? What other names were on the list?
34. What was I like as a baby?
35. What surprised you most about being a mother?
36. Who helped you in those first years, and who did you wish had helped more?
37. What did you worry about at night when we were small?
38. What is a moment from my childhood you think about more than I would guess?
39. What did you do differently from your own mother, on purpose?
40. Is there anything you would do differently now?

Work, home and hard times (questions 41 to 50)

41. What work have you done, paid and unpaid, over your life?
42. What part of that work were you proudest of?
43. What was a normal day for you when I was in grade school, from waking up to going to bed?
44. How did you keep the house running when money was tight?
45. What was the hardest year of your life, and what got you through it?
46. Who did you call when things went wrong?
47. What did you give up, or put on hold, that you still think about?
48. What did you hide from us kids to protect us?
49. When did you surprise yourself with how strong you were?
50. What did those hard times teach you that you still use?

Who she is, apart from being your mom (questions 51 to 60)

51. When do you feel most like yourself?
52. What do you do when you have an afternoon all to yourself?
53. What music, books or shows have meant the most to you?
54. What is something you are good at that most people do not know about?
55. Where is a place you have always wanted to go, and why?
56. Who are your closest friends now, and how did you meet them?
57. What still makes you laugh, every time?
58. What is something you changed your mind about as you got older?
59. What do you believe in most?
60. What is one thing you still want to do?

What she wants you to know (questions 61 to 70)

61. What are you proudest of in your life?
62. What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?
63. What do you wish you had known at my age?
64. What family story should never be forgotten?
65. What do you wish you had said to your mother while you could?
66. What do you hope I pass on to the people I love?
67. What do you want your grandchildren to know about you?
68. What have you never told me that you would like me to know?
69. What do you want me to remember about you as a person, not just as my mom?
70. Is there anything you would like to ask me?

How to ask, and how to record it

Ask for a moment, not a summary. Most first answers are short. The story comes from the follow-up. Keep these ready:

• "Can you tell me about one particular day?"
• "Where were you? Who else was there?"
• "What did she say, as close as you remember?"
• "How did you feel then, and how do you feel about it now?"
• "Then what happened?"

Make it easy to say yes. Tell her why you are asking: for the family, for your kids, or just for you. Say she can skip any question. Pick one theme per conversation, and bring a photo, a recipe card or a piece of jewelry to start with. "Tell me about this" reaches memories that questions miss.

Record it. Ask before you press record. Put your phone on something soft, a hand's width or two from her, in a quiet room with the television off. Say the date and the theme at the start, and back up the file the same day. If she lives far away, a phone or video call works too: the iPhone recording guide covers in-person, phone and video calls, and the recording setup guide covers rooms and backups.

Be careful with the hard parts. Loss, illness, divorce and family secrets can come up without warning. Do not push; ask whether she wants to keep going or come back to it another day, and accept the answer. Before you share anything, let her read it and take out what she wants kept private. The life story interview guide has more on interviewing an older parent with care.

Keep the recordings. Store two copies in different places. If you want her stories on paper, the transcription options guide compares software and human transcription, and the transcript to chapter guide shows how spoken stories become readable prose.

Asking your dad or your grandparents too? There are separate lists of 70 questions to ask your dad, 80 questions to ask your parents and 75 questions to ask your grandparents.