80 questions to ask your parents, and how to record the answers

Their own childhood (questions 1 to 10)

1. Where did you grow up? Describe the house, room by room.
2. What were your parents like when you were small?
3. What did your family do on weekends?
4. What is your earliest memory?
5. What was your favorite thing to eat, and who made it?
6. Who was your best friend as a child? What did you get up to?
7. What were you afraid of as a kid?
8. What did you get in trouble for?
9. What did you want to be when you grew up?
10. What is one thing from your childhood you wish I could have seen?

Growing up and leaving home (questions 11 to 20)

11. What were you like as a teenager?
12. What music did you play loudest?
13. Which teacher or adult changed the way you saw things?
14. What was your first job, and what did you spend the money on?
15. When did you leave home, and why?
16. Describe your first place of your own.
17. What was the biggest risk you took in your twenties?
18. What did your parents think of the choices you made?
19. Who were your friends then, and are you still in touch?
20. What did you believe at twenty that you do not believe now?

How they met, and their life before kids (questions 21 to 30)

21. How did you two meet? Tell me the whole story.
22. What was your first impression of each other?
23. What was your first date?
24. When did you know this was serious?
25. How did the proposal happen, if there was one?
26. What was your wedding day like? What went wrong?
27. Where did you live first, together?
28. What did you do for fun before you had kids?
29. What did you argue about in the early years?
30. If you had not met, where do you think you would be now?

Raising you (questions 31 to 40)

31. What do you remember about the day I was born?
32. How did you choose my name?
33. What was I like as a baby, and as a small child?
34. What was the hardest part of being a new parent?
35. What is your favorite memory of me as a kid?
36. What did I do that scared you most?
37. What rule did you have that I never knew the reason for?
38. What did you worry about when I was a teenager?
39. What did you do differently from your own parents, on purpose?
40. Is there anything you would do differently now?

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

41. How did you end up in your line of work?
42. What was a normal working day for you when I was small?
43. What part of your job were you proudest of?
44. Was there a time money was very tight? How did you get through it?
45. What was the hardest year of your life? What got you through it?
46. Who helped us when we needed it, that I might not know about?
47. What sacrifice did you make that I probably never noticed?
48. What did your work teach you about people?
49. Did you ever want to quit everything and start over? What stopped you?
50. What would you have done if money had not mattered?

Looking back (questions 51 to 60)

51. What are you proudest of?
52. What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?
53. What do you wish you had known at my age?
54. What is something you changed your mind about?
55. What family story should never be forgotten?
56. Which of your parents' sayings do you still hear in your head?
57. What do you hope I pass on to my kids, or to the people I love?
58. What still makes you laugh, every time?
59. What do you want people to remember about you?
60. What have you never told me that you would like me to know?

Questions to ask your mom (questions 61 to 70)

These work for any mother or mother figure. Some will land better than others; skip the ones that do not fit your family. For a longer list, see 70 questions to ask your mom.

61. What was your own mother like, and what did you learn from her?
62. What was your life like right before you had me?
63. What did you expect motherhood to be like, and what surprised you?
64. What did you give up, or put on hold, to raise us?
65. Which family recipe should I learn from you? Walk me through it.
66. What did you do when you needed time for yourself?
67. Who did you call when things were hard?
68. What is a moment from my childhood you think about more than I would guess?
69. What do you wish you had said to your mother while you could?
70. What do you want me to know about you as a person, not just as my mom?

Questions to ask your dad (questions 71 to 80)

These work for any father or father figure. If short answers are his style, the follow-ups below do most of the work. For a longer list, see 70 questions to ask your dad.

71. What was your own father like? What did he teach you, on purpose or not?
72. What is the first thing you remember building, fixing or making?
73. What was your first car, and where did you drive it?
74. What did you think when you found out you were going to be a dad?
75. What did you want to do differently from your own father?
76. What job or project are you proudest of?
77. What did you worry about that you never told us?
78. What is a place you would like to take me, and why?
79. What does being a good man mean to you?
80. What do you want me to remember about you?

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 they 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 them why you are asking: for the family, for your kids, or just for you. Say they can skip any question. Pick one theme per conversation, and bring a photo or an object 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 the person speaking, 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. 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. Illness, loss, divorce and family secrets can come up without warning. Do not push; ask whether they want to keep going or come back to it another day, and accept the answer. Before you share or publish anything, let them read it and take out what they want 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 the 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.

Recording your grandparents too? There is a separate list of 75 questions to ask your grandparents.