How to Interview Your Parents Over the Phone When You Live Far Away

Tell them it's coming. "Can I ask you something about when you were young on Sunday?" is easier to say yes to than a question that arrives out of nowhere in the middle of a call about the weather.

Send the question a day ahead, by text, email or a note in the mail. A question they've had a night to think about gets a story; a question they hear for the first time on the phone often gets "oh, I don't know".

Let them pick the time, and keep it. The same day and hour each week turns it into something they look forward to rather than an interruption.

Ask from a quiet room, and suggest they do the same, away from the television. If they have a photo from the time you're asking about, ask them to have it in hand when you call.

Ask one question, two at most. Twenty minutes on one good question is worth more than an hour of quick ones, and it leaves something for next week.

Ask for a scene. "What was your first job like?" gets a summary; "Walk me through the first morning at that job" gets a room, a person and a smell.

Use small follow-ups: "Who else was there?", "What did it look like?", "And then what happened?". On the phone you can't nod, so say it out loud: "Go on."

Leave the silences alone. On a call, a pause feels longer than it is, and the urge is to fill it. Count to five before you speak; the second half of the answer usually comes in that gap.

Don't correct dates or details. If a sibling remembers it differently, that can wait. The story as they tell it is the point.

It usually means the question was too big or came too suddenly, not that there's nothing there. Go smaller: not "what was school like" but "what was on the wall behind the teacher's desk".

Change the sense. If they can't picture the room, ask what it sounded like, or what was cooking. One small detail tends to bring the rest of the scene with it.

Ask about a person instead of an event. "Who sat next to you?" is often easier than "what happened that year?".

Or let it go. "No problem, let's leave that one" takes the pressure off, and it's common for the answer to turn up a few days later, unprompted. Tell them they can call you when it does, or jot it down for next time.

Ask first, every time, and say what the recording is for and who will hear it. "It's just for the family" is usually enough. The rules on recording phone calls aren't the same in every state, so asking is never optional.

The simplest way works on any phone: put the call on speaker and record it with the voice recorder on a second device, like a tablet or an old phone.

On an iPhone, Apple has a built-in call recorder in recent versions of iOS, in the regions where it's available. Both people on the call hear an audio notice that it's being recorded, and the recording is saved to a Call Recordings folder in the Notes app. Apple's own instructions say to make sure the other person gives explicit consent first.

Name each file with the date and the question. A folder of recordings called "New Recording 14" is the reason most of them never get listened to again.

Write down their exact words, the same day, before you tidy them up in your head. The way they say it is the point: "the kitchen was the size of a closet" is better than anything you'd write instead.

Read it back to them on the next call, or send it to them. It's the fastest way to catch a wrong name, and it often brings a detail they left out the first time.

Keep a list of what you've asked, so you don't repeat yourself in three months. When you run out of questions, there are 40 more on each of our pages of questions to ask your mom, questions to ask your dad and questions to ask your grandmother, none of them repeated from this list.

1. What can you see from the window nearest to you right now?

2. What did you carry in your pockets as a child?

3. Which shop near your childhood home can you still picture, and what did it sell?

4. What did you have to wear as a child that you couldn't stand?

5. What chore were you given on Saturdays, and who checked it was done?

6. Where was the telephone in the house you grew up in, if there was one?

7. If you wrote letters when you were young, who were they to?

8. How did news from far away reach your house when you were a child?

9. Tell me about a phone call or a letter that changed your plans.

10. Tell me about the longest trip you ever made by bus, train or car.

11. Which neighbor did everyone talk about, and what did they say?

12. Who could make you laugh until you couldn't breathe?

13. Whose house did you like visiting as a child, and what was in it?

14. Who taught you to do something with your hands, and how did they teach it?

15. What did you do with a free afternoon when you were in your twenties?

16. What did you think the year 2000 would look like, when you were young?

17. What was the first thing you learned to cook, and who ate it?

18. Tell me about a time you got lost, in a city or on a road.

19. What slang did you and your friends use that nobody says anymore?

20. What would you like me to ask you on the next call?