Our Family Letters

· Our Family Letters

Questions to ask your elderly parents — their stories, and the practical things

Most question lists for elderly parents are really childhood lists — school days, first jobs, the war. Lovely, and we have those too. But they skip the decades you actually shared with them, and they all tiptoe past the other conversation: the practical one about where things are and what they’d want.

This page holds both, kept properly separate — stories first, practical last, each asked gently. Everything here is on one printable pack too, because a list on paper works better than a phone at most kitchen tables.

Their middle years — the decades you shared

Their middle years

The 40s to 60s are the least-asked-about decades of a life — and the ones with you in them. Parents light up when someone finally asks about the years they were building, not just the years they were small.

  1. What was the best year of your working life — and what made it?
  2. What do you remember about the day you got the keys to the family home?
  3. What were we like to raise — honestly?
  4. What did you and Mum/Dad do when we’d finally all gone to bed?
  5. What did you give up in those years that you still think about?
  6. When the last of us left home, what did you do with the quiet?

If the stories start flowing

  • If a hard patch from those years surfaces — money, work, the marriage — remember they’re telling you as the person who lived it, not confessing. Receive it the same way.

The family home

Houses hold whole eras. If they’ve left the family home — or are thinking about it — these questions honour what it held.

  1. Of everywhere you’ve lived, which was home-est, and why?
  2. What did that house see that the rest of the family never knew about?
  3. Which room do you walk through when you think of it now?
  4. What did the garden mean to you?
  5. What was the hardest thing about leaving — and what was a relief?
  6. If you could take one more walk through it, where would you stop?

For short visits — five minutes, one question

Not every visit has room for the photo albums. These are for the twenty-minute pop-in, the care-home afternoon when energy is low, or the phone call on the way home. One question, asked like you mean it, is a complete visit’s worth of remembering — and next week gets its own.

The five-minute set

Short to ask, satisfying to answer, and finished before tiredness arrives. Fit for one per visit.

  1. What did you have for tea on a good day when you were young?
  2. Who’s the funniest person you’ve ever known?
  3. What smell takes you straight back somewhere?
  4. What was your favourite age to be?
  5. What song would you have them play for you?
  6. Who was kind to you once that you’ve never forgotten?
  7. What did your mum do better than anyone since?
  8. What are you glad you did while you could?

The stories only they still know

The stories only they still know

They are now the keeper of people you never met. These questions collect the generation above them before it goes quiet.

  1. What do you know about your parents’ courtship that I’ve never heard?
  2. Who in the family never got talked about — and what do you actually know?
  3. Which friend of yours from way back should the family remember?
  4. What’s the oldest family story you know — who told it to you?
  5. What did your grandparents’ world look like, from what they told you?
  6. Is there a photograph somewhere that nobody living could explain but you?

What they make of it all

Reflection questions work late in life in a way they don’t earlier — there’s a whole shape to look back on. Ask plainly and let the answers be plain too.

  1. What are you proudest of that nobody gives you credit for?
  2. What turned out to matter much less than everyone said it would?
  3. What would you tell the person you were at forty?
  4. What’s been the great surprise of getting older?
  5. Who do you hope we’ll keep telling stories about?
  6. What do you hope we’ve learned from watching you?

The practical things — asked with care

There’s a second kind of question families put off for years, because asking feels like bad manners or bad luck. It’s neither. Knowing where things stand is a kindness to everyone — most of all to them, because it means their wishes, not guesses, will be followed. Pick a calm moment, say why you’re asking (“so we never have to scramble”), and don’t do it all in one sitting.

Practical things worth knowing

Framed as “help us get it right”, not “planning for the worst”. One or two per conversation is plenty.

  1. Is there a will, and where does the paperwork live?
  2. Have you set up lasting power of attorney — and if not, can we help sort it?
  3. Which doctor, solicitor or adviser should we know about?
  4. What would you want us to know about the care you’d choose — and not choose?
  5. Are there things in the house that must go to particular people?
  6. What would you want done with the photographs and letters?

If the stories start flowing

  • If it stalls, drop it warmly — “no rush, just want to get it right someday” — and try one question again in a month. The door matters more than the answers today.

Keeping the answers

The story answers deserve keeping in their words — a notebook, a voice memo, or questions asked by email so the reply arrives written by them, dated, and impossible to lose. The practical answers deserve a different home: one document the right people can find, reviewed once a year, boring on purpose.

Don’t mix the two. The stories are for everyone, forever; the practical list is for the few who’ll need it. Both are acts of love, and neither should have to wait for the other.

Questions families ask us

How do I bring up the will and power of attorney without it feeling morbid?
Name the reason honestly and small: “I want to be sure we’d get it right, so we never have to guess.” Anchor it to normal life (a friend’s experience, your own will, a news story), ask one question, and stop while it’s comfortable. Lasting power of attorney is the one not to drift on — it can only be set up while someone has capacity, so it’s a much easier conversation earlier than later.
What should I ask a parent in a care home with limited energy?
Use the five-minute set: one short, sensory question per visit — favourite teas, kind people, songs. Bring one photo or object some weeks and let it do the work. Leaving them mid-smile after ten good minutes beats an hour that tires you both; the visits add up into the record.
Is there a printable version of these questions?
Yes — the free pack below has every question on this page typeset for print, including the five-minute set and the practical list on its own separate sheet. We email it to you as a PDF.
My parent answers everything with “oh, you know it all already.” What helps?
Ask about the parts you genuinely can’t know: their middle years before you paid attention, the relatives above them, the friend they’ve outlived. “I know the stories about me — tell me one without me in it” reframes it in a sentence. And if they’re generally reluctant about the past, our guide on helping an elderly parent talk about the past covers the gentler approaches.

You could ask these questions yourself.

Most families mean to, and never quite do. We send your grandparent one gentle question a week, by email, and keep every reply — in their words, forever.

Start their letters

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