Questions for the People Who Made You. A monthly franchise on the conversations you wish you had with the people who raised you, before the chance to have them runs out. Each month introduces 50 prompts in a specific category, organized into rituals that can be asked across multiple Sundays at the kitchen table. The first batch — 50 questions across four groupings, designed for four to six visits — launched in May 2026. The franchise continues monthly with new prompts, new categories, and new reader-submitted question banks.

What the franchise is

The conversations that get postponed are the ones that disappear. Most adult children have a list of questions they want to ask their parents, about their childhood, about their own childhood from the parent’s side, about the love and friendships that shaped who they became, about what they hope to be remembered for — and most of those lists stay in the head, asked too late or not at all. This franchise turns the list into a ritual.

Each month introduces 50 prompts organized into a specific theme, with the structural guidance for how to ask them: when to set up the conversation, where to sit, whether to record, what to do with the silences.

Cadence

• Last Sunday of every month — one new question bank, plus a published account of how a real family used the previous month’s prompts
• Newsletter integration: the Sunday Reset before each drop previews the new bank

What gets covered

Cornerstone (already shipped)

Questions to ask your aging parents before it’s too late: 50 prompts and the ritual that makes them work — the franchise launch piece. 50 questions across four groupings: their childhood, your childhood from their side, their love and friendships, what they hope you remember.

The next six months

1. June 2026: Questions to ask a parent who is recovering from illness
2. July 2026: Questions for grandparents (different from parent prompts; different stakes, different time horizon)
3. August 2026: Questions for the in-law you didn’t grow up with
4. September 2026: Questions for siblings (the relationships parents don’t always see)
5. October 2026: Questions for the family member you’ve been estranged from
6. November 2026: Questions for your kids (the reverse of the franchise; what we wish we could remember asking them)

Reader submissions

Readers can submit families who have used the prompts and want to be featured. We coordinate on what to keep private, what to anonymize, and how to credit the family. Submissions: [email protected].

The deeper purpose

This franchise is the answer to one of the most common letters we receive: “I want to talk to my parent about something important and I don’t know how to start.” The answer is rarely a single question; it is a ritual — a small repeating structure that makes the questions easier to ask. We are building a library of those rituals.

Recent features

The most recent installments appear below. Full archive lives at /columns/questions-for-the-people-who-made-you/.

Read also: Questions to ask your aging parents before it’s too late — the cornerstone the franchise expands.