[2024-06-25] Family history: parenting
This is the sixth installment in my series about conducting a life history interview with an older family member or friend. The series is based on William Fletcher's book Recording Your Family History. Previous posts in the series provided an introduction to recording your family history, questions to ask the interviewee about their grandparents, parents, siblings, questions pertaining to their childhood (birth to 11 or 12 years of age), questions pertaining to their youth (adolescence through the teenage years and into the early twenties) and questions pertaining to courtship and marriage.
Today's post focuses on parenting. You can tailor the questions depending on whether you're speaking to a mother or a father, but I've written the questions in a way that they could be posed to either one. Use the questions as a guide, adjusting as required depending on the interviewee's perspective and number of children.
Pregnancy
- How old were you when you had your first child?
- How did you feel when you found out that you were going to have a child?
- Had you planned to have a child?
- What was your first pregnancy like?
- Did you hope for a girl or a boy? Why?
- How did you prepare for pregnancy? Did you know what to expect?
- Do you remember any funny or notable incidents during the pregnancy?
Childbirth
- How did you know it was time to go to the hospital?
- In what hospital was the baby born?
- How did you get there?
- Can you describe your experience with labour and childbirth?
- What were your thoughts and feelings when you first saw your baby?
- What was your baby's weight and height?
- At what time of the day were they born?
- Was the baby born earlier than expected, as expected, or later than expected?
Name
- How did you decide what to name your baby?
- Were they named after anyone?
- Had you shortlisted other names before your baby was born? What were they?
Infancy
- Did anyone stay with you to help in the first few days after you brought the baby home?
- How would you describe your infant?
- Did they cry a lot, sleep a lot, feed a lot?
- Do any funny or special memories come to mind when thinking about your child's first six months?
Childrearing
- How did you learn how to parent? By reading books, seeking the advice of others, or learning by doing?
- What aspects of childrearing were easy and which aspects were difficult (e.g., sleeping, breastfeeding, teething)?
- What aspects of childrearing were you focused on versus your partner?
- How did you discipline your child?
Birth of subsequent children
- At what time of day was your second child (subsequent children) born?
- In what hospital were they born?
- Tell me about the pregnancy and childbirth for your second child (subsequent children).
- Did you hope for a girl or boy? Why?
- Was the baby born earlier than expected, as expected, or later than expected?
- Did you plan the spacing of your children?
- How did the delivery of your first child differ from that of your second child (subsequent children)?
- What did you call your second child (subsequent children) and did you name them after anyone?
- What was their weight and height?
- Did anyone stay with you to help in the first few days after you brought them home from the hospital?
- What was your first child's reaction to the second baby (subsequent children)?
- How would you describe your second child (subsequent children) as a baby?
- Do any funny or special memories come to mind when thinking about their first six months?
- Do you remember the first words each of your children spoke?
Raising a family
- How did having children change your life?
- How would you describe your philosophy of childrearing?
- Was your approach similar to or different from that of your parents?
- How did your children get along with each other?
- What were the strengths or innate talents of each of your children?
- What were their interests?
- How did they do in school?
- What were your expectations about their performance in school?
- Do you recall what they said they wanted to be when they grew up?
- Were they involved in extracurricular activities?
- Do you recall any funny stories about their childhood?
- When they started to go out, did you have a curfew for your children?
- What was their taste in music and did it differ markedly from your own?
- What was the biggest difference between your teenage years and your children's teenage years?
You can conclude the interview by asking your interviewee to record a message for each of their children. You could say, "Imagine your children listening to this interview in the distant future when you are no longer around. What would you like to say to each of them?"
