100 questions to ask your parents about their life
A full list you can use as it is, grouped so you can pick the part that suits the mood you are both in. Plus what to do when an answer comes back short.
Start with one specific question rather than a general one. “What did your kitchen smell like on a Sunday?” gets a real answer far more often than “tell me about your childhood” does. The 100 questions below are grouped into nine themes. You are not meant to ask them all. Choose five or six from one theme, ask them properly, and let the conversation go where it wants to.
Before you start
Three things make more difference than the questions themselves.
IAsk permission, plainly. “I would like to record this, so I do not have to scribble notes. Is that all right?” People almost always say yes, and being asked changes how seriously they take it.
IIAsk one question at a time. A double question gets a half answer. If you ask “where did you grow up and what was it like?”, you will get the postcode.
IIILet the silence sit. The three seconds after someone finishes a sentence is where the better half of the answer usually lives. If you fill it, you lose it.
Make your own list as you read.Tap any question to add it to your list for next time; it stays on this device, and you can copy or print it.Read through, pick five or six, and write them down.
01
Chapter 1 of 9 · 1 to 15
Where they came from
02
Chapter 2 of 9 · 16 to 27
School and being young
03
Chapter 3 of 9 · 28 to 39
Work
04
Chapter 4 of 9 · 40 to 50
Love
05
Chapter 5 of 9 · 51 to 60
Being a parent
06
Chapter 6 of 9 · 61 to 68
The hard parts
Ask these only if the room is right for them, and be ready to move on if it is not.
07
Chapter 7 of 9 · 69 to 80
The texture of the everyday
These are the ones people skip, and they are the ones that bring a story to life.
08
Chapter 8 of 9 · 81 to 90
What they believe
09
Chapter 9 of 9 · 91 to 100
Us, and what comes after
When it goes quiet
When an answer comes back short
“I don’t know” and “it was just normal” are not refusals. They usually mean the question was too big, or that nobody has ever been interested before and the habit of not saying takes a while to break.
Three things that work:
Go smaller. Swap “what was school like?” for “who sat next to you?”
Go sideways through an object. A photograph, a medal, a recipe, a tool, a piece of jewellery. Put it in their hands and ask what it is. People who will not talk about themselves will happily talk about a thing.
Ask what someone else did. “What was your mother like when she was cross?” is easier to answer than “what were you like?”, and the answer is usually about them anyway.
If none of that shifts it, stop and make a cup of tea. The question that gets nothing today often gets ten minutes next week.
The same day
What to do with it afterwards
Two practical things, the same day if you can.
Label the file with the date and who is on it, and move it off the phone. A recording called “New Recording 47” is a recording nobody will ever find again.
Then write down, in a couple of lines, what you did not ask. That list is what you start with next time, and it is usually better than any list you could find online, including this one.
From Amanda
The temptation with a list this long is to work through it like a form. I would rather you got four answers properly than sixty in outline. If a question opens something up, stay there. The list will still be here next time.
