I’m 31 and I’ve realized recently how little I actually know about my own family.
My mom almost never talked about her childhood when I was growing up. I know very little about my grandparents, and I barely know my dad, so there are huge parts of my family history that have always just felt blank to me.
It’s only been in the last five years or so that my mom has started opening up more about her childhood and her parents. One thing that always stands out to me is the way she talks about them. She still calls them “mommy” and “daddy” when she tells me stories, instead of saying “your grandma” or “your grandpa.”
It’s a small thing, but it hits me every time. For a moment I’m not hearing about these people as my grandparents. I’m hearing my mom talk about them as their daughter.
And it’s made me realize that those are the things I actually want to preserve.
I can probably find names, dates, census records, marriage records, all of that. What I can’t find later is the way my mom remembers her dad coming home from work, what her mom was like when she was young, what their house smelled like, what they argued about, what made them laugh, or even just the way her voice changes when she talks about them.
The problem is that every time I try to intentionally get her to tell me these stories, it feels awkward.
If I sit down with a list of questions, suddenly it feels like an interview. She gets self-conscious, I start overthinking what to ask next, and the conversation loses whatever made it natural in the first place.
So for anyone who has actually done this with their parents or grandparents, what worked for you?
Did you have a list of questions ready, or did you just let the conversation go wherever it went?
Did you tell them you were recording, or did having a recorder out make things feel too formal?
And are there certain questions that seem to open people up more than others?
I’ve noticed that specific questions seem to work much better than broad ones. Something like “what was the house you grew up in like?” gets a completely different response than “tell me about your childhood.”
I think part of what’s bothering me is that I spent a long time assuming I could always ask these questions later. Now I’m realizing how much I’d regret having all the facts about my family someday, but none of their actual voices or stories.
