Questions to Ask Your Parents While You Still Can

You've thought about it before. Maybe at a family dinner when your dad told that story again, the one about his first job, the one everyone's heard but nobody has ever written down. Or when your mom mentioned something offhand about her childhood that you'd never heard before and then the moment passed.

You think: I should record that someday.

Someday has a way of not arriving.

This isn't about being morbid. It's about being intentional. Your parents are walking around with decades of stories, memories, and wisdom that exist nowhere else in the world. And the window to capture them, in their own voice, in their own words, is finite. Here's how to start.

You don't need a plan. You need a first question.

The biggest reason people don't record their parents is they don't know where to begin. It feels like a project. It feels like it requires the right moment, the right setup, the right mood.

It doesn't. It requires one question and a phone.

Some of the best places to start:

• What do you remember about the house you grew up in?

• What was your first job, and what did you learn from it?

• How did you meet mom/dad?

• What do you want your grandchildren to know about you?

• Is there a story about our family that you're afraid will be forgotten?

You don't have to ask all of them. Ask one and see where it goes. Often the most simple questions lead to the richest stories.

Do it in the car, at the kitchen table, on a walk.

You don't need to sit your parents down for a formal interview. That framing makes it feel like a big deal, which makes it easier to postpone.

The best recordings happen in ordinary settings. A drive to the airport. Sunday dinner. A slow walk around the neighborhood. The context makes them more relaxed, and the recordings end up more real.

Audio is better than video for this.

When there's a camera, people perform. They fix their hair, they speak more carefully, they lose the spontaneity that makes a recording worth keeping.

Audio captures the voice exactly as it is. The laugh, the pause, the way your dad trails off when he's really thinking. That's what you'll want to hear again someday.

Don't wait for the right moment. Make one.

The next time you're with your parents, try one question. Record it on leaf, tag it with their name, and save it. That's it.

For more questions to get you going, visit our full question prompt library. And if you want to give someone you love the gift of capturing these stories, you can give leaf as a gift.

Download leaf free in the App Store or Google Play Store and start today.