Getting to know them again · HELLOYEARS BLOG
You know them as your parents. Who were they before that?
You know how they take their tea. You may know less about the young person who first left home, fell in love or wondered what to do next.
The person before the role
It is easy to know a parent through what they do for the family. The person who drove you somewhere, remembered what you liked to eat, or knew when something was wrong.
But they had a life before that role. Friends you have never met. A first job you know only by its name. Plans that worked out, and plans they quietly changed.
A family memoir makes room for that earlier person. You can meet your mother or father at ages you have only imagined, through the memories they choose to tell.
There are gaps in the stories we already know
Many families have stories everyone recognises: the move, the wedding, the day something went wrong and eventually became funny.
Knowing the headline is different from knowing the experience. A move might have meant excitement to one person and loneliness to another. A first job may have introduced a friendship that mattered for decades.
When parents tell a story from their own point of view, familiar events can take on a different shape. You may understand a family habit or a piece of advice a little better.
You do not have to agree with every choice to be interested in how they made it.
Curiosity can feel better than an assignment
“Write your life story” is a large thing to ask someone. A conversation is easier to enter.
That is the approach behind HelloYears. The AI interviewer provides prompts and follows the storyteller’s answers, so a parent does not need to prepare a manuscript and you do not have to plan the whole interview.
A conversation might begin with leaving school, meeting a friend or remembering a favourite place. The next question should follow the memory that has just been shared.
If a parent wants to skip a subject, they can. Getting to know someone better should not mean asking them to explain things they would rather keep private.
Their account deserves its own space
Family members can remember the same day differently. A memoir told from your parent’s perspective does not need to resolve every difference into one official version.
Their book can say what they remember, what they felt and what they still do not know. Other people’s names and relationships should be checked with the storyteller rather than guessed from photographs.
You can help gather photos or point out a date that needs checking. The voice of the book should still be recognisably theirs, and the storyteller reviews the draft before printing.
A book to return to together
There is pleasure in reading a family story while the person who told it is beside you. A paragraph can start another conversation. A photograph can bring back something they had not thought to mention.
The finished book can also give younger family members a way into experiences that happened before they were born. It holds context that a name on a family tree cannot provide.
HelloYears began with the founder’s wish to make such a book with his own father. You can read their story here.
You do not need a special occasion to begin. Sometimes you simply want to know a little more about someone you already love.