write interview with you and your parents (hints :their childhood and education and proffession life and change of life days before marriage and after marriage
Answers
Answer:
Where were you born?
What time and date were you born?
Where did your name come from?
What is your nickname and why?
What was your first memory?
Did you move around a lot when you were younger?
What comes to mind when you think about growing up in India?
What did you love to do as a kid, before high school?
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Interviewing your Parents
Amitt Mahajan
Amitt Mahajan
Dec 23, 2019·6 min read
My mom turned 65 recently and I decided I wanted to interview her and capture her life story.
My goal was to spend some time with her, listen (and practice being patient!), and create a family relic I could hopefully share with my kids and grandkids someday.
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I interviewed her for about 6 hours split over 2 days. It ended up being a fairly powerful experience for me as an interviewer spanning a range of emotions. The interview also filled in some gaps I had in my knowledge of my mother’s history and helped me understand her journey more completely even though I had heard bits and pieces of her story over my lifetime. Some philosophical differences also were clearly highlighted and articulated which are interesting future topics of conversation.
It’s difficult to imagine taking a 65+ year life and asking someone condense it down into a few hours of video but ultimately our stories are lived moment-to-moment and it was illuminating to see which ones stood out for my mom and the emotion that each of those moments still carries for her. I’m grateful she was vulnerable, able to remember so much, and willing to spend the time.
Finally, I included the process and questions I ended up asking her since they may be of help to others that want to go through this process with their own parents.
It was an immense privilege to be able to do this interview. I hope the experience of showing interest in, and hearing, their life story gives you an opportunity to be present with your parents and helps you bring new light to your relationship with your them.
Logistical considerations
Getting good audio from an iPhone was difficult, I used AirPods as a makeshift microphone for her. I used MoviePro to record audio from a Bluetooth microphone:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/moviepro-pro-video-recorder/id547101144.
If I were to do this again, I would get a proper Omni-directional microphone to more clearly capture both her audio and my questions.
I debated whether or not to simply remain a neutral interviewer and let her answer the questions as read but decided instead to actually press her further where I felt it was appropriate and where I was curious. I think this ended up being the right approach as sometimes the questions were originally misunderstood.
I haven’t edited the video yet, but I plan on dividing it into sections (based on the questions) to make it easier to jump around.
Questions
Childhood/Young Adult
Where were you born?
What time and date were you born?
Where did your name come from?
What is your nickname and why?
What was your first memory?
Did you move around a lot when you were younger?
What comes to mind when you think about growing up in India?
What did you love to do as a kid, before high school?
What did you love to do in high school?
What do remember most about your teenage years?
What hobbies did you gravitate towards as a child?
Did you have any pets growing up?
What are all the schools you attended?
Who was your best childhood friend? How would you describe her and your relationship with her?
Did you have any family traditions growing up?
What was your house like as a child?
What was a typical day like in your childhood?
Where did you go to college?
What did you major in and why?
What are your parent’s names and when were they born?
How did your family come to settle in Delhi?
Can you tell us a bit about your parent’s backgrounds?
How did they meet and decide to get married?
Were your parents married before marrying each other?
What do you remember most about your mom and dad?
What was most important to each of them?
If grandma and grandpa had a message to you and their grandchildren, what do you think it is?