Fablr

Questions to ask

Questions to Ask Your Parents About Faith and What They Believe

Not a debate. Questions about where their beliefs came from, what tested them, and what they still hold on to.

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A mother holds a well-worn book with notes in its margins as she talks with her adult daughter at a kitchen table by candlelight.

Curious, not arguing

You might know which services your parent went to, or that they stopped going, without ever hearing why. Faith, or the absence of it, runs underneath a lot of family history: who married whom, how the holidays were kept, what got said at a hospital bedside.

These conversations go best when you are curious and not trying to win anything. Ask about their experience, not their position. You can believe something different and still want to know how they came to believe what they do.

Before you sit down

  • Tell them why you are asking: you want to know them better, not change their mind.
  • Start with places and people, not with doctrine.
  • If they have a prayer, a hymn, a passage or a saying they love, ask them to share it.
  • Leave room for doubt. Many people have never been asked about theirs.

Growing up

  1. Was faith part of your house growing up? What did that look like day to day?
  2. Where did your family worship, if anywhere? What do you remember about the place?
  3. Who taught you the most about what to believe?
  4. Was there a ritual or holiday you loved as a child?
  5. Did you ever get in trouble for a question you asked?

Making it your own

  1. When did your beliefs start to feel like yours and not your parents'?
  2. Was there a person or a moment that changed how you saw things?
  3. Did you ever walk away from it, or come back to it?
  4. How did faith shape who you married, or how you raised us?

When it was tested

  1. Was there a time your faith was tested? What happened?
  2. What got you through the worst year you can remember?
  3. Is there something you still don’t have an answer to?

What they hold on to

  1. What do you believe now that you didn’t believe at twenty?
  2. Is there a prayer, a verse or a saying you keep coming back to?
  3. What do you think happens after we die?
  4. What would you want your grandchildren to understand about what you believe?

There are no right answers here. A parent who says “I am not sure” has told you something real.

If these talks come more easily when someone outside the family asks, Fablr can ask gently, follow up, and keep what they say private to the people they invite. You might also like these questions to ask your parents about the hard years.

At the kitchen table, a granddaughter scans the printed code on a chapter of an open Fablr hardcover with her phone camera.

If you would rather someone else asked

A biographer who asks the next question.

Fablr holds these conversations by voice, at whatever pace suits them. It follows up the way a good listener does and remembers what they said last time. The stories become a hardcover, with a code on each chapter that plays it in their own voice.

Conversation
15 hours over one year. No schedule.
The book
Full-color 8.5×11 hardcover, included. Free US shipping.
Price
$149, billed once. No auto-renewal.
Give Their Story $149 See how it works

Questions, answered.

Say so up front and promise not to argue. You are asking about their life, and most parents are glad to be asked.

Ask the same questions about what they value and where it came from. Most of them work just as well for conscience, family and community.

Yes, if you ask gently and let them decline. Many older people want to talk about it and find that nobody will.

Yes. Stories are private by default. Only the people you invite can see or add to them, and nothing is made public or sold.

Give them a year set aside for stories.

$149 billed once. No auto-renewal. 30-day money-back guarantee.

Give Their Story $149