Questions to Ask Your Dad When He Does Not Talk About Himself
There is a whole category of question your dad will answer at length, and a category that ends the conversation in four words. Most people only ever use the second one.
Ask a lot of dads how something felt and you get one word back. Fine. Busy. Long time ago. Try it twice and the reasonable conclusion is that he does not want to talk about his life.
Watch the same man describe a truck he owned in 1979 and you will see the actual situation. He will tell you what it cost, what was wrong with the transmission, who he bought it from, and what happened the night it died outside a town you have never heard of. Somewhere in the middle of that he will mention, without being asked, that it was the year he almost did not marry your mother.
The feelings are not behind a door he is holding shut. They are attached to objects, and you get to them by asking about the objects.
Twelve questions built the way he answers
1. What was the first car that was actually yours?
Why it works. It is the single most reliable opener there is. It is concrete, it is his, and it carries a date, a job and a place along with it.
How to ask it. Ask what was wrong with it, because something always was, and the repair is where the people show up.
What it opens up. The job that paid for it, road trips, who was in the passenger seat, and the year.
2. What did you make an hour?
Why it works. Money is reporting, not confessing, so it does not trip the reflex. It also dates everything with precision.
How to ask it. Then ask what rent was. The gap between the two numbers tells the whole story of that decade without either of you naming it.
What it opens up. What was tight, what he went without, and the point at which it got easier.
3. Who taught you to do the thing you are best at?
Why it works. It routes through a person rather than through him, which is the direction he is comfortable talking in.
How to ask it. Ask what that person was like to be around, not just what they taught him.
What it opens up. A father, a foreman, a coach, a neighbour, and frequently a man nobody in the family has heard of who mattered enormously.
4. What was the worst job you ever had?
Why it works. Complaint is an easy mode. He will happily be funny about it, and the funny version contains all the detail a serious version would have hidden.
How to ask it. Ask what time he started. Early start times unlock the whole shape of a year.
What it opens up. What he was willing to do, who he worked beside, and why he left.
5. Who else was in the room?
Why it works. The best follow-up question in existence. It turns a compressed headline back into a scene, and it works at any point in any story.
How to ask it. Use it constantly rather than saving it. Every time a story starts to shrink into a summary, ask it.
What it opens up. Names he has not said in years, which is usually where the untold story is sitting.
6. What is something you built or fixed that you were proud of?
Why it works. Making is a language he already speaks. Pride arrives attached to an object, which makes it sayable.
How to ask it. Ask whether it is still standing. That question has produced some remarkable answers.
What it opens up. The skill, who he did it for, and what he was trying to prove and to whom.
7. What did your father do all day?
Why it works. Most people know their grandfather's job title and nothing about the hours. The texture is what is vanishing, and your dad is the last one who saw it.
How to ask it. Ask what time he left, what he wore, and what he smelled like when he got home.
What it opens up. What that work did to him, and whether your dad chose the same life on purpose or specifically refused it.
8. What is a decision you almost made and did not?
Why it works. It is the question that gets an hour. Every man has a fork he still thinks about and almost nobody has ever asked him about it.
How to ask it. Ask it side by side rather than face to face. In a car, on a walk, working on something. It matters more than it should.
What it opens up. A move, a job, a person, and often something you did not know existed.
9. When did you know you were going to marry Mom?
Why it works. He was a nervous young man making a large bet, and his children essentially never ask him to go back there.
How to ask it. Ask him separately from her. The two accounts rarely match and the mismatch is the best part.
What it opens up. How they actually met, which is surprisingly often not the official family version.
10. What were you afraid of doing wrong as a father?
Why it works. It is specific enough to answer and it does not require him to perform emotion. Fear of a mistake is a practical thing.
How to ask it. Ask it one to one, never with siblings in the room, and do not respond too fast when he answers.
What it opens up. His own father, what he was consciously trying not to repeat, and what he thinks he got wrong.
11. What is something you were wrong about?
Why it works. It treats him as a man who has thought about his own life, which is flattering rather than accusing.
How to ask it. Go first. Offer one of yours before you ask. Without that it can land as a charge.
What it opens up. A changed mind on work, on money, on a person, or on how he raised you.
12. What do you want the grandkids to know about you?
Why it works. It is the right last question because it stops being your interview and becomes his statement.
How to ask it. End on it, and record the answer if he will let you. His voice saying it is worth more than the transcript.
What it opens up. The thing he most wants kept, which belongs at the front of the book.
One practical note
If he answers in three sentences, that is not a failure. Three sentences a week for a year is a book. The people who end up with nothing are not the ones whose fathers were brief. They are the ones who waited for a long conversation that never got scheduled.