Today Russia celebrates Mother’s Day. A great opportunity to get to know your mothers better. It’s hard to imagine, but before we were born, they had their own interesting and eventful life! Here is a list of 38 questions to ask your mother right now so you can get even closer.
A year and a half ago, my sister, mother and two of our aunts – her sisters – met in a cozy Italian restaurant to celebrate an important family date. For many years we did not meet in such a composition. Almost the last time it was when my sister and I graduated from high school.
A couple of glasses of wine and the conversation became very casual. An old friend of one of the aunts was at the table, and they began to remember how they lived in Manhattan in the 1980s.
Stories rained down, one more surprising than the other: about rented apartments, love affairs, the first job and about who studied where.
I learned, for example, that some very rich man from another country was in love with my mother, when she was in her early twenties. As a child, I had never heard this story and could not even imagine that a private plane could fly for my mother to take her alone to the meeting point and then back.
It reminded me that before I was born, my parents had their own life full of adventures and worries that had nothing to do with me.
Of course, we heard in childhood the stories that they told us about themselves. But rather, these were stories about how they studied well or helped their parents, than stories about their real experiences, meetings and partings.
As we get older, we begin to learn a lot about parents already as adults.
What way did they go to stop and suddenly create our little family world?
Here are 38 questions to ask your mother right now to see her from an unexpected perspective.
- What is your earliest memory?
- What troubles did you get into when you were little?
- What kind of relationship did you have with your parents—my grandparents—as a child?
- Was there something you dreamed of doing or a place you would like to visit? What games did you like the most?
- What were the punishments at that time? What were you most often punished for?
- Did you date anyone before you married your dad (if your parents are married)?
- Have you ever parted ways with someone you loved? How did you manage?
- Have there been times when you have been very lucky?
- How has your life changed since you got married?
- How did you manage to work and manage at home during those times? What did you do to be successful? (If the mother worked)
- Did you have to look for a job or be without money? How did you act in this situation?
- What hairstyles did they wear then? What was fashionable at school? And when did you go to college?
- Who was your idol when you were young?
- What is your best trip?
- Who was your best friend/girlfriend? Where is she now? Have you ever quarreled with her?
- Have you had an abortion? Why?
- Was there a moment or event in your life that radically changed your view of the world?
- Do you remember your most impulsive, thoughtless act or sudden decision?
- When I was growing up, was there a moment when I upset or offended you?
- How many times have you fallen in love?
- How did you know you were ready to marry my father? (If parents are married)
- When did you realize that you want and are ready to have children (or were you not prepared for this)?
- What should I know about our family history that I may not have been told?
- Tell me about the day I was born. What was he like?
- What was your wedding day like? (If mother was married)
- Do you remember the biggest fight you had with your father? How did you reconcile? What was the reason?
- Which photo of you do you like the most?
- What was the first year of motherhood like for you?
- What did you imagine me to be when I grow up?
- What was your happiest day at work? What do you consider your achievement?
- When you were as old as I am now, what did you want to be?
- What and who did you have to fight in high school?
- How did you usually spend your day off when you were 17?
- Have you ever had health problems that you didn’t tell me about?
- What day would you call the happiest?
- What is your favorite song, what does it mean to you?
- Have you ever imagined yourself when I will be 20 and you 40? How did you imagine our life? Is it similar to the one we live in now?
- What would you like to fix in your life?