How did you end up doing the work you do?

Why this question works

This question asks for a path, not a title, and paths make good stories. Your parent gets to walk you through the turns: the class they loved, the thing they tried first, the person who said "you should apply." Most people have never been asked to tell it from start to finish, and they are often interested to hear it themselves.

It is especially valuable if you are at a turning point of your own. Hearing that your mother changed direction twice, or that your father fell into his trade and grew to love it, is deeply reassuring. It shows that a good working life is rarely a straight line. It is also a quiet way to honor the work that kept your family going. Many parents assume their children were never very curious about what they did all day, and they are pleased to be wrong.

How to ask it

Ask it one on one, somewhere without interruptions. A walk, a drive or a late cup of coffee after the dishes are done all work well. This is a story with several chapters, so choose a time when nobody is watching the clock.

Your tone should be simple curiosity: "I realized I do not actually know how you got into this." Then let them start wherever they want. Some will begin in childhood, some with their first real job. Ask about the forks in the road, the moments when it could have gone another way, and give them room to enjoy how it turned out.

Other ways to word it

• How did you get into your line of work?
• Did you choose your career, or did it choose you?
• What did you think you were going to do before this?
• Who opened the first door for you?

Follow-up ideas

• What was the very first step?
• Was there a moment you knew this was the right work for you?
• Did you ever think seriously about doing something else?
• Who helped you along the way?
• What did your own parents think of your choice?
• What do you like best about the work?
• What would you tell someone who is just starting out?

An example answer

This is an invented example, written to show the kind of detail to listen for. Your dad’s answer will be his own.

"Completely by accident. I was going to be a history teacher. The summer after my second year of college I needed money, and a neighbor got me a job sweeping up at his cabinet shop. By August he had me cutting drawer fronts, and I noticed I was going in early because I wanted to."

"I went back to school that fall and lasted one semester. Telling my parents I was leaving college to build cabinets was one of the hardest conversations of my life. My father did not say much for a week, and then he asked me to build him a workbench. I think that was his way of saying fine. Thirty years later I still like the smell of the shop in the morning. I never did teach history, but I have trained a lot of young people, and that turned out to scratch the same itch."

What to write down

Sketch the path as a simple timeline: what your parent planned to do, the first step, each turn after that and the year of each if they remember. Write down the names of the people who opened a door or gave good advice. Note the moment they knew the work suited them. Add what they would tell someone starting out today, in the words they used.

The Tell Me Your Story journals for Dad and Mom include a question like this one in the chapter about work, on a page of its own. The questions around it ask about first jobs, proud moments and the path not taken, so the whole working story ends up in one place.

See the Tell Me Your Story, Dad journal or the Tell Me Your Story, Mom journal. For more ideas, read questions to ask your parents or browse work questions.