Question pack

Questions to Ask Your Mother About Her Life

Interview questions for your mother's whole life: who she was before you, the people she loved, the family and work that shaped her, and what she knows now.

You know your mother as a mother. That's the problem. There were decades of her life before you showed up, and she rarely gets asked about them. Most conversations run on the family's current business: who's visiting, what the doctor said, what's for dinner.

These questions go after the rest of her. They're deliberately specific (a first paycheck, a Friday night, a kitchen table) because specific questions pull up real scenes, and "tell me about your life" pulls up a shrug.

Use only the questions that fit. Skip anything that feels too private, and follow the details they want to share.

Before she was your mother

  1. What did your bedroom look like when you were sixteen?
  2. What was your first paying job, and what did you spend the first paycheck on?
  3. Who taught you to cook, and what was the first thing you made on your own?
  4. What did you and your friends do on a Friday night?
  5. Where did you live when you first left home, and who else was there?
  6. What did you wear when you wanted to look your best?

Relationships and starting out

  1. Was there someone important to you in those years? How did you meet?
  2. If you dated, what did you enjoy doing together?
  3. What did the people close to you make of someone you were dating, if you introduced them?
  4. What was in the first place you lived on your own — and what was not?
  5. What did a week of groceries look like when you were starting out on your own?
  6. What was the first big thing you saved up to buy?

Raising a family

  1. If you raised or cared for children, what do you remember about those early days?
  2. What was dinnertime like — who cooked, who set the table, what got eaten?
  3. What was the hardest year for the family, and what got you through it?
  4. Was there a rule you carried forward or chose to change?
  5. What did you do in the evenings when the household was quiet?
  6. What did a young person in your life do that still makes you laugh?
There is a version of your mother you have never met — the girl she was before you, the choices she almost made.

What she knows now

  1. What piece of advice from someone who raised you turned out to be right?
  2. What did you work hardest to give the people you cared for?
  3. Which friend have you kept the longest, and how did you manage it?
  4. What do you still do exactly the way you were taught growing up?
  5. What would you tell the woman you were at twenty-five?
  6. What's a place you'd go back to tomorrow if you could?

How to use these questions

Ask them in her kitchen if you can. A mother at her own stove or table, hands busy, talks more freely than one seated across from a phone that's obviously recording. Bring one question from each section rather than working down the list. The goal is a conversation, not a form.

When an answer lands on something interesting, follow the noun. If she mentions a green coat, ask where the coat came from. Save the rest of the list for the next visit; having questions left is a reason to come back.