A free guide from Your Life Interview

The questions to ask a parent while there is still time

A life interview is simply a good conversation, recorded. Here are the questions to ask a parent or grandparent, part by part through their life, and how to ask them so the stories come out.

Before you start

  • Ask first, both whether they would like to do it and whether you may record it, and tell them who the recording is for.
  • A phone's voice recorder is enough. Find a quiet room, put the phone between you, and record openly.
  • Keep each sitting short, and plan several. A whole life takes a few hours, and nobody needs to tell it in one afternoon.
  • Bring old photographs, a map or a familiar object. They bring back names and scenes that a question alone will not.

How to ask

  • Ask one question at a time, and keep it short, so they do most of the talking.
  • Follow the details: who was there, where it was, what was said, what happened next. "What did the kitchen look like?" opens more than "Were you happy?"
  • One follow-up, perhaps two, then move on. You can always come back to a story.
  • Let silence be. Never finish a memory for them, and accept their corrections at once.

The questions, part by part

A life interview moves through six parts of a life. Use these to begin each one, and let their answers lead you on.

1. Childhood, family and the places they grew up

  • What is the earliest thing you remember?
  • Describe the house you grew up in. What did the kitchen look like?
  • Who lived with you, and what was each of them like?
  • What did your family do on an ordinary evening?
  • Who outside the family mattered to you as a child, and why?

2. Growing up: school, friends and leaving home

  • Who was your closest friend as a teenager? What did you get up to?
  • Which teacher do you still remember, and what did they say or do?
  • What were you told you would become? Did you agree?
  • When did you first feel grown up?
  • Tell me about the day you left home.

3. Work, ambitions and turning points

  • What was your first job, and what did you do with the first money you earned?
  • What did you hope to do with your life when you were twenty?
  • What was the biggest decision you ever made? How did you make it?
  • Tell me about something that went wrong, and what you did next.
  • What are you proudest of having done?

4. Love, family and belonging

  • Who has been the great love, or the great friendship, of your life? How did you meet?
  • What did you learn about yourself from the people closest to you?
  • If you raised children, what surprised you most about it? If not, who have you looked after or guided?
  • Where have you felt most at home, and with whom?
  • What family tradition would you most like kept?

5. Values, beliefs and everyday life

  • What do you believe now that you did not believe when you were young?
  • What is a rule you have always lived by?
  • What does a good day look like for you?
  • What makes you laugh? What makes you angry?
  • Tell me about a time you changed your mind about something important.

6. Life today, hopes and what to pass on

  • What do you enjoy most about your life now?
  • What do you hope for, for yourself and for the family?
  • What advice would you give your grandchildren?
  • What do people most often misunderstand about you?
  • Is there anything important we have not talked about yet?

Go back for the best stories

After the broad interview, pick the few stories they told only in passing and give each its own sitting. A story is one particular episode, not a topic: "the night my father drove me to the ferry", not "my father". Ask where and when it happened, who was there, what was said, what happened next, how it turned out and what it means to them now.

Be gentle with hard subjects

Before you ask about grief, illness, estrangement, religion, regret or a family secret, ask plainly whether they would like to talk about it, and move on without pressure if they would rather not. A life interview is a conversation, not therapy, and nobody owes you every story.

Keep the answers

Copy each recording to a second place the same day, and label it with the date and who was speaking. Write down the names and places you will want to spell correctly later. Then decide, with them, who may hear it.

If the family would like those stories as a finished book or a film, there are two ways to go on:

  • MemoirMaker: your parent talks with Marin, a patient AI interviewer, and gets back a memoir written in their own voice, with every paragraph shown beside the words they said. Free to start, and family members can help as co-authors. Start a memoir or give one as a gift.
  • MemoirMovies: a finished memoir becomes a hand-drawn animated film, narrated in the author's own sentences, approved one part at a time. See how it works.

The stories only one person can tell.

Pick three questions from this page, and ask them at your next visit.

Write a memoir Your Life Interview