Fablr

Questions to ask

Questions to Ask Your Parents About Their Life

Start with an easy story, then ask the one after it. Questions for every stage of their life, and how to follow up.

Give Their Story $149 See the questions

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A daughter and her father sit on the front porch steps with coffee, talking.

Start with what you don’t know

You know the outline of your parents' lives: where they grew up, how they met, what they did for work. The details underneath are what you’ll want one day, and they only come out when someone asks.

These questions follow a life from the beginning. You don’t need all of them. Pick a few from one stage, ask slowly, and let one answer lead to the next.

Before you sit down

  • Start with childhood. It’s easy to talk about and leads everywhere.
  • Ask about places and people before feelings.
  • When an answer is short, ask for one more detail.
  • Stop while they still want to say more. The next visit starts easier.

Growing up

  1. What was your street like when you were a kid?
  2. What’s your earliest memory?
  3. Who was your best friend, and what did you get up to?
  4. What did your parents do for work?
  5. What was the hardest part of being a kid in your family?

Leaving home

  1. When did you first live on your own, and what was the place like?
  2. What was your first real job?
  3. What were you sure of at twenty that turned out to be wrong?
  4. What’s the biggest risk you ever took?

Love and family

  1. How did you meet, and what did you notice first?
  2. What was the day I was born like for you?
  3. What surprised you most about being a parent?
  4. Which family tradition do you most want us to keep?

Work and the middle years

  1. What work are you proudest of?
  2. Was there a year when everything changed?
  3. What did you do just for yourself?

Looking back

  1. What do you know now that you wish you’d known at thirty?
  2. When were you happiest?
  3. If you could live one day again, which would it be?
  4. What do you want your grandchildren to know about you?

Go deeper on one topic

  • His first job
  • The home she grew up in
  • Coming to a new country
  • Faith and what they believe
  • The hard years

If you would rather not run the interview yourself, Fablr can hold these conversations by voice, ask the follow-up questions and keep what they say for the family.

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 renewal.
Give Their Story $149 See how it works

Questions, answered.

Start with easy, specific questions about childhood, and ask about people and places before feelings. Many parents also open up more to a patient listener outside the family.

Ask first, and tell them who will hear it. A recording keeps their voice and their way of telling it, which is hard to get back later.

Move on. Come back to it another day, or never. The questions are a starting point, not a list to finish.

Three or four is plenty. One good story is a successful visit.

Give them a year set aside for stories.

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

Give Their Story $149