A field guide for families
35 questions to ask your parents.
Twenty questions at Thanksgiving is an interview. One good question on a Tuesday is a conversation. This is a free, printable guide to the second kind — thirty-five questions organized like a life, each one traveling with the follow-up that opens the story.
What’s inside
Built to be used, not admired.
- 01
Seven chapters, shaped like a life
The rooms they grew up in, the people who made them, turning points, work and days, love in whatever shape it took, mischief and laughter, and what carries forward. Not a grab bag — a route.
- 02
A follow-up under every question
First answers are rehearsed; second answers are remembered. Every question travels with the follow-up that opens the story — the part most lists leave out, and the part that matters.
- 03
Five ways to lose the story
The reasonable, fair, conversation-ending phrases — “you already told me that one” — and what to say instead. Worth the download on its own.
- 04
A field-notes page
Checkboxes by every question and a small log for where the good ones went, because this guide is built to be printed, folded into the visit, and left by the phone.
Three of the thirty-five
The follow-up is the real question.
A taste of how the guide works: ask, then stay. The italic line is where the stories live.
- 1
Walk me through the house you grew up in — starting at the front door.
Then: what did it smell like on a Sunday?
- 13
What’s the closest you ever came to a completely different life?
Then: do you ever visit it in your head?
- 35
What story have you never told, because nobody ever asked?
I’m asking.
The guide
Tell us where to send it.
Six pages, made to print. We’ll email your copy and put the download right here the moment you submit — no card, and the questions are yours either way.
And when you would rather someone did the asking: Joan calls, listens, and writes — the first conversation is free. Read what Joan promises before you decide.