Fablr

Questions to ask

Questions to Ask Your Parents About Coming to a New Country

The passport photo, the first winter, the word they couldn’t say. Questions about the move that made your family.

Give Their Story $149 See the questions

Billed once · no auto-renewal · 30-day money-back

A mother at her kitchen table shows her adult son her old passport while he holds a small faded photograph.

The move that made your family

Somewhere in the house there is a passport with a younger face in it, a photo of a crowded dock, or a document stamped in a language you can’t read. Your parent made a decision that shaped every year of your life, and you may know only the outline.

These stories can be proud, funny and painful in the same sitting. Some parents tell them freely. Others learned long ago to keep them short. Start with the small things, like food, words and weather, and let them choose how far back to go.

Before you sit down

  • Ask in whichever language they tell stories best, even if you need help translating later.
  • Bring a document or a photo from the move, and ask them to explain it to you.
  • Leave politics for another day. This conversation is about their life.
  • Ask who else was there. Brothers, cousins and neighbors carry pieces of the same story.

Before the move

  1. What was the town or city you grew up in like? What did your street sound like?
  2. What did your parents do for a living?
  3. When did you first think about leaving?
  4. Who made the decision, and was everyone in favor?
  5. What had you heard about this country before you came?

Getting here

  1. What did you pack? What did you have to leave behind?
  2. Who did you say goodbye to, and what did they say?
  3. How did you travel, and how long did it take?
  4. What do you remember about the day you arrived?
  5. Who met you, or who did you go to first?

The first years

  1. Where did you live first? Describe the room.
  2. What was your first job here?
  3. What was the hardest word or custom to get used to?
  4. What food from home did you miss most, and where did you finally find it?
  5. Who was kind to you when you didn’t know anyone?
  6. When did this place start to feel like home, if it ever did?

Looking back

  1. What did you keep from the old country, and what did you let go of on purpose?
  2. Have you been back? What was it like?
  3. What do you hope your grandchildren understand about where they come from?
  4. If you could tell your younger self one thing on the day you left, what would it be?

A recording in your parent’s own voice, with their accent and their words for things, is worth more than any summary you could write down later.

If distance makes long visits hard, Fablr can hold these conversations by voice, ask the follow-up questions and keep their answers for the family. You might also like these questions to ask your mom about the home she grew up in.

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.

Start after the move instead of before it: the first job, the first apartment, the first food they found that tasted like home. The earlier years often come up on their own.

Ask first, and tell them who will hear it. Many parents relax once they know it is for the grandchildren.

Ask them to spell the names and describe them, and write them down right away. Place names are the hardest thing to recover later.

Yes. Your parent talks with Fablr by voice from their own phone, tablet or computer, and the family can read and hear the stories from anywhere. As the gift buyer you can handle the setup, and your parent opens a private link with no account or password.

Give them a year set aside for stories.

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

Give Their Story $149