Relating to Family: Aging Parents
With our busy lives, work, kids and will-it-won’t-it-end of the pandemic, it can be easy to forget to schedule time with an aging or retired parent. My advice is, don’t delay! Make the time, and use it to create genuine memories and connection. The opportunity to connect with a loved one won’t last forever.
When a friend of mine lost her father a few years ago, it prompted her to interview her mother and record the answers before it was too late. There are a number of articles about how to gather a family history and preserve interesting knowledge. Here’s an article with 50 good questions to consider asking.
It turned out that my friend’s conversation with her mom was fun, too! She told me, “I realized that even though I’m an adult, our conversations are usually still shaped by the dynamic we had when I was in my 20s. My parents asked a lot of questions about my life, and didn’t tell me a lot about theirs. The interview made me realize how little I knew about my mom’s early life. Some of the most interesting things she said were tangential to other questions. And some of it shed light on behaviors I never really understood!”
But the best part, my friend told me, was that it bettered her relationship with her mother.. “I went in with this idea that I wanted to “get information” but it helped me realize we could improve our communication style, even this far down the road. I try to make our conversations more balanced.”
Here’s an article that has 20 questions to ask an aging parent that has a number of “just-for-fun” questions, like:
Who were your friends when you were growing up?
What was your favorite thing to do for fun?
What was school like for you as a child? What were your best and worst subjects? What did you eat for lunch?
Who is the person who influenced your life the most?
It also includes some questions that address the relationship between the conversation partners, like:
In what ways do you think I’m like you? And not like you?
Is there anything you have always wanted to tell me but never have?
Is there anything you regret not having asked your parents?
Do you wish anything had been different between us, or would you still like to change something?
What do you think of these questions… and do you have a great question to ask a parent you don’t see on these lists?
You might also like this previous article from Dr. Amy: Relating to kids and teens.
