100 Questions to Ask Parents & Grandparents

How to use this list

You will not get through 100 questions in one sitting. You're not supposed to. Pick three. Record the answers. Come back next week.

The best questions are the ones that sound simple. "What did the kitchen smell like on Sunday mornings?" will get you more than "Tell me about your childhood."

Record on your phone. Always. You'll forget the words exactly — but never the voice.

Childhood

1. 1What's the earliest memory you can describe in detail?
2. 2What did your childhood home smell like?
3. 3Who lived in the house when you were small?
4. 4What was your bedroom like?
5. 5Who was your best friend when you were eight?
6. 6What did you and your siblings argue about most?
7. 7What was the worst trouble you ever got into?
8. 8Who was the kindest adult in your life as a child?
9. 9What did you want to be when you grew up?
10. 10What's a sound from childhood you'd recognize anywhere?
11. 11What was Saturday morning like at your house?
12. 12What did you do on a long summer afternoon with nothing planned?

Family traditions

1. 1What did your family do every Sunday?
2. 2What holiday did your family do best?
3. 3Who hosted Christmas — and why them?
4. 4What was the one rule at the holiday table?
5. 5Was there a song someone always sang?
6. 6Was there a prayer or blessing said before meals?
7. 7What was the dish that meant a holiday had begun?
8. 8Was there a tradition you secretly hated as a kid?
9. 9Is there a tradition you wish we'd kept?
10. 10What's a tradition you started yourself?
11. 11Who was the keeper of the holidays in your family?
12. 12What's something your family did that no one else's family did?

Food memories

1. 1What was your favorite thing your mother made?
2. 2What was your favorite thing your father made?
3. 3What was your grandmother's signature dish?
4. 4What did the kitchen look like when you were small?
5. 5What was a smell that meant "home"?
6. 6What was the first meal you remember cooking?
7. 7Who taught you to cook?
8. 8What's a recipe you've never written down?
9. 9What's a dish you can no longer find?
10. 10What food do you associate with being sick as a child?
11. 11What food do you associate with celebration?
12. 12What's a dish you'd want served at a perfect family dinner today?
13. 13What's the worst meal you remember eating?
14. 14What dessert defined your childhood?

Marriage & partnership

1. 1Where did you meet?
2. 2What did you think the first time you saw them?
3. 3What was your first date?
4. 4What did you wear to your wedding?
5. 5Who was there? Who wasn't?
6. 6What's a small thing you did for each other in the early years?
7. 7What was the hardest year?
8. 8What's the kindest thing they've done for you?
9. 9What's a habit of theirs you've come to love?
10. 10What advice would you give a couple just starting out?
11. 11How did you decide to have children — or not?
12. 12What's something only the two of you know?

Life lessons

1. 1What's the best advice anyone ever gave you?
2. 2What's the worst advice anyone ever gave you?
3. 3What did you believe at twenty that you no longer believe?
4. 4What did you believe at forty that you still believe?
5. 5What's a mistake you're grateful you made?
6. 6What's a fear you outgrew?
7. 7What's a fear you never outgrew?
8. 8When have you felt most proud of yourself?
9. 9When have you felt most ashamed — and what did you do with it?
10. 10What's something you wish you'd done sooner?
11. 11What's something you're glad you waited on?
12. 12What would you tell your twenty-year-old self in one sentence?

Funny stories

1. 1What's the funniest thing that ever happened at a family meal?
2. 2What's the most embarrassing thing you did as a teenager?
3. 3What's a story we always tell that's mostly true but partly exaggerated?
4. 4Was there a family pet who deserves a whole chapter?
5. 5What's a prank you played that you still think about?
6. 6What's the funniest thing one of your kids ever said?
7. 7What's a vacation that went hilariously wrong?
8. 8Who in the family is the best storyteller — and why?
9. 9What's a phrase someone in the family always said that we now quote?
10. 10What's something that's only funny now, years later?

Holiday memories

1. 1What was the best Christmas of your childhood?
2. 2What was the best Thanksgiving you ever cooked?
3. 3What was on the table at Easter?
4. 4Did your family celebrate any holidays others didn't?
5. 5Who decorated the house — and how seriously?
6. 6What was the gift you remember most — given or received?
7. 7What was the song that meant the holiday was here?
8. 8Was there a holiday film you watched every year?
9. 9What's a holiday memory that still makes you cry?
10. 10What's a holiday tradition you'd want carried on after you?

Legacy

1. 1What do you hope your grandchildren remember about you?
2. 2What do you hope they forget?
3. 3What's something you've never told the family that you'd like recorded?
4. 4What did you learn from your own parents that you tried to pass on?
5. 5What did you try not to pass on?
6. 6What are you most proud of in your life?
7. 7What's something you built — a recipe, a tradition, a habit — that you hope outlasts you?
8. 8If you could leave one sentence on the kitchen wall forever, what would it say?