60 questions to ask your parents before you wish you had
Most people only think to ask once it is harder to. These questions are grouped by part of life, so you can start anywhere. The best ones are specific: "What did your bedroom look like?" gets a story; "What was your childhood like?" gets "fine".
Childhood
- What is the first thing you remember?
- Describe the house you grew up in, room by room.
- Who was your best friend, and what did you do together?
- What did you get in trouble for?
- What did your family eat on a normal weeknight?
- What was your favorite toy or game?
- Which grandparent were you closest to, and why?
- What did your parents do for work?
- Where did you go on holidays?
- What scared you as a kid?
School and growing up
- Who was the teacher you remember most?
- What were you like at sixteen?
- What music did you play too loud?
- What was your first car, and where did you drive it?
- What was your first job, and what did it pay?
- Who did your parents not want you hanging around with?
- What did you want to be when you grew up?
- What was the biggest trouble you got into as a teenager?
- What was a normal Friday night?
- What do you wish someone had told you at eighteen?
Love and family
- How did you meet Mom (or Dad)? What did you notice first?
- What was your first date?
- How did you know they were the one?
- What was your wedding day like, and what went wrong?
- Where was your first home together?
- What was the day I was born like?
- What surprised you about being a parent?
- What did your parents get right that you copied?
- What did you decide to do differently?
- What is a family tradition you started?
Work and the middle years
- What job were you proudest of?
- Who was the best boss you ever had?
- What was the hardest year, and how did you get through it?
- What was the biggest risk you took?
- Where in the world have you been that you loved?
- What did you do for fun when we were little?
- Who were your closest friends as an adult?
- What was a decision you went back and forth on for a long time?
- When did you feel most like yourself?
- What was the best piece of advice you ever got at work?
Big questions
- What are you most proud of?
- What do you wish you had done more of?
- What do you want your grandkids to know about you?
- What has changed most in the world during your life?
- What do you believe now that you did not when you were young?
- Who do you miss?
- What makes a good life?
- What is the kindest thing anyone ever did for you?
- What would you tell me if you knew I would listen?
- Is there a story you have never told anyone?
Family history
- Where did our family come from before here?
- Who came to this country first, and why?
- What languages were spoken in your house growing up?
- What do you know about your grandparents’ lives?
- Are there family stories everyone tells at gatherings?
- Which relative do you think I am most like?
- Are there old photos, letters or recipes I should know about?
- Who in the family was the storyteller?
- What family names have been passed down?
- What should we never forget about where we came from?
How to get real stories, not one word answers
This is exactly how EverTold works: it asks one question out loud, listens, follows up, and waits for them to finish. You can pick their first three questions from this list when you give it as a gift.
- Ask about a place, a person or a day, not about a whole decade.
- Follow up with "And then what happened?" or "What did that look like?"
- Let the silence sit. The best part often comes after a pause.
- Record it. Even a phone on the table is better than relying on memory.
- Ask again later. The same question on a different day brings back different details.
What only EverTold does
Each relative hears the story from their own place in the family
When Mom tells a story about her brother, her daughter hears it as a story about "your uncle" and her grandson hears "your great-uncle", read aloud in a warm storyteller’s voice. Every listener gets the version that makes sense to them.
Story time for the grandkids
A grandchild can tap a story at bedtime and hear it retold for a child: the same true story, simpler words, a gentler pace. Adults get the faithful telling.
A real conversation, not a writing assignment
EverTold asks a question out loud, listens, and follows up, like a patient grandchild on a phone call. It waits for them to finish. Nobody has to write a thing.
Their real voice, kept
The recordings of their answers are saved privately for the family, right next to the written stories, so you keep the way they actually sound.
Handed down for generations
A family library that keeps growing, paid for once. No subscription, no renewal, nothing to cancel.
The family can ask for more
Anyone in the family can send a question like "Mom, tell me about the farm". It goes to the real person, and their answer comes back as a new story.
The EverTold Forever Promise: One payment, no renewals, for as long as EverTold operates. Download everything any time. If EverTold ever closes, you get at least 6 months’ notice and then 90 days to download everything before anything is deleted. Read the full promise
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What are good questions to ask your parents about their life?
Specific ones about places, people and days: the house they grew up in, how they met, their first job, the hardest year and how they got through it, and what they want their grandchildren to know.
How do I record my parents’ answers?
A phone on the table works. If you want the stories written up, narrated and shared with the whole family, EverTold asks the questions for you in a spoken conversation and keeps everything.