100 questions to ask your parents before it's too late

Updated 18 October 2026 · 6 min read

Almost everyone has a question they wish they had asked a parent or grandparent. Here are 100 of the questions families most often wish they had asked, grouped so you can pick a few at a time, plus how to ask them and keep the answers.

How to ask

• A few at a time. Five questions over a cup of tea beat fifty in one sitting.
• Ask for stories, not facts. "Tell me about the day you…" opens more than "When did you…".
• Follow up. "What happened next?" "Who else was there?" "How did that feel?"
• Record their voice. Ask permission, then record. Years later, the sound matters as much as the words.
• Let them skip. Some questions touch old pain. That's fine.

Childhood and where they grew up

1. What is your earliest memory?
2. Describe the house you grew up in. What did your room look like?
3. What did your street or village sound and smell like?
4. What games did you play, and with whom?
5. What was a normal day like when you were eight?
6. What did you get in trouble for?
7. What did you want to be when you grew up?
8. What was your favourite food as a child, and who made it?
9. What did holidays and celebrations look like at home?
10. Were you ever really scared as a child? What happened?

Their parents and grandparents

11. What were your parents like? What did they do for a living?
12. What is something your mother always said?
13. What is something your father always said?
14. Did you know your grandparents? What do you remember about them?
15. Where does our family come from, as far back as you know?
16. Are there family stories that have been passed down to you?
17. Who in the family were you closest to growing up?
18. What did your parents argue about?
19. What did you learn from your parents that you still do?
20. What do you wish you had asked your own parents?

Growing up, school and friends

21. What were you like as a teenager?
22. Which teacher do you still remember, and why?
23. Who was your best friend? What happened to them?
24. What music did you love?
25. What was the bravest or most rebellious thing you did?
26. What did you do on weekends?
27. When did you first feel grown up?
28. What was the first thing you bought with your own money?
29. Where was the first place you travelled to without your parents?
30. What did your generation get right that mine doesn't?

Love and marriage

31. Who was your first love?
32. How did you meet Mum or Dad?
33. What did you notice first about them?
34. What was your first date like?
35. How did you know they were the one?
36. Tell me about your wedding day.
37. What was hard in the first years together?
38. What has kept you together, or what pulled you apart?
39. What do you think makes a good partner?
40. What would you tell me about love?

Becoming a parent

41. How did you feel when you found out you were going to be a parent?
42. Tell me about the day I was born.
43. How did you choose my name?
44. What was I like as a baby?
45. What was the hardest part of raising children?
46. What was the funniest thing I did as a child?
47. What do you think you did well as a parent?
48. What would you do differently?
49. When were you most proud of me?
50. What do you hope I pass on to my children?

Work and money

51. What was your first job?
52. How did you end up in the work you did?
53. What did you enjoy most about your work?
54. Who was the best boss or colleague you had?
55. What was the biggest mistake you made at work?
56. Were there times when money was very tight? How did you manage?
57. What did your parents teach you about money?
58. What is the best decision you ever made about money?
59. If you could have done any job, what would it have been?
60. What does a good day's work mean to you?

Hard times

61. What is the hardest thing you have been through?
62. Who helped you through it?
63. Have you lost someone you still think about every day?
64. Is there something you regret?
65. Was there a time you had to start over?
66. What big historical events did you live through, and how did they touch our family?
67. When were you most afraid as an adult?
68. What did you learn from being ill or seeing someone ill?
69. Is there someone you never forgave, or who never forgave you?
70. What would you say to someone going through what you went through?

Home, food and traditions

71. Which family recipe should never be lost? How exactly do you make it?
72. What did a holiday table look like in your childhood?
73. Which traditions do you hope we keep?
74. What songs did your mother sing?
75. What objects in the house have a story? Tell me the story.
76. What prayers, sayings or superstitions did you grow up with?
77. What is the best meal you have ever eaten?
78. Which place feels most like home to you?
79. What should we never throw away?
80. What would you cook for me if it were your last chance to cook for me?

Beliefs and opinions

81. What do you believe in?
82. Has your faith or outlook changed over your life?
83. What makes a person good?
84. What do you think about getting old?
85. What scares you about the world today, and what gives you hope?
86. What is something most people get wrong?
87. What have you changed your mind about?
88. What do you think happens after we die?
89. What do you want people to remember about you?
90. How would you like to be remembered at family gatherings?

Advice and what matters

91. What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?
92. What advice would you give me today?
93. What should I do when I don't know what to do?
94. How do you get through a bad day?
95. What do you wish you had known at my age?
96. What matters most in a life?
97. What are you most grateful for?
98. What do you want your grandchildren to know about you?
99. Is there anything you have never told me?
100. What would you like to say to me that you haven't said?

Keeping the answers

The answers are only valuable if they survive. A notebook works. A voice recording is better, because the way they tell a story is part of the story. If your parent doesn't like typing, let them answer by talking.

OtherMy was built for exactly this. Make a copy of your mother or father, ask these questions in the app, hand them the phone and let them answer by talking; the app writes it down, and you can add recordings of their voice. Your brothers and sisters can add their own memories to the same copy. Later, the whole family can ask their copy things and hear the answer the way they would put it. More on keeping a voice in how to save a parent's voice.