What has changed most in the world during your lifetime?

Why this question works

This question turns your grandparent into an eyewitness. A textbook can tell you when households got telephones or televisions. Only a person who was there can tell you what it felt like when the first one arrived on their street, and how the whole neighborhood crowded into one living room to look at it.

The answer is often not what you would guess. You might expect to hear about technology, and you will, but many grandparents name something subtler: how far families now live from each other, how fast everything moves, how much choice there is, how differently children spend their days. Listening, you learn about the world they started in, and you see your own everyday life with fresh eyes. It is a wonderful question for school-age grandchildren, who are amazed by a childhood without the things they consider ordinary, and it lets Grandma or Grandpa be the family's own living history book.

How to ask it

A good spark is anything that makes the contrast visible: a grandchild video-calling a friend, a self-checkout at the grocery store, an old photograph of a street that looks nothing like it does today. Point to it and ask what that was like when they were young.

Ask with real curiosity and keep the comparison friendly. This is not a contest between then and now, and it helps to ask about both sides: what is better today, and what they miss. Ask for the first time they saw or used something new. A specific first, such as the first television, the first airplane flight or the first long-distance call, makes a far better story than a general observation.

Other ways to word it

• What is the biggest change you have seen in your lifetime?
• What do we have now that you could not have imagined as a child?
• What is better today than when you were young?
• What do you miss about the way things used to be?

Follow-up ideas

• What did your family have when you were small: a car, a telephone, a radio?
• Do you remember the first time you saw a television?
• How did people get news, and how fast did it travel?
• How did families keep in touch across a distance?
• What did things cost when you were starting out?
• What invention changed your daily life the most?
• What has not changed at all?
• What do you think my grandchildren will find old-fashioned about today?

An example answer

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

"The quiet is gone. That is the biggest change. When I was a girl, the evening was quiet. You could hear a screen door close three houses away. We had one radio, and it was on for an hour after supper, and then it was off. If you wanted to know something, you asked a person or you walked to the library."

"I remember the day our neighbors got the first television on the street. Eleven of us children sat on their floor and watched a test pattern, a picture of nothing at all, and we thought it was a miracle. Now you carry the whole world in your pocket, and I will admit I love seeing your face on that little screen when you call. I would not go back. I like my washing machine too much. But I do think people have forgotten how to sit on a porch and just listen. That is why I keep one."

What to write down

Write down the change your grandparent named first, and what daily life was like before it. Record their firsts with a year for each if they can recall: the first telephone, television, airplane trip. Note what they say is better now and what they miss. Add what they think has not changed at all. Children enjoy this page, so consider reading it aloud to the youngest in the family.

A question like this one has its own page in the Tell Me Your Story journals for grandparents, in the chapter on home and everyday life. The journals also include then-and-now pages, which suit this subject perfectly.

See the Tell Me Your Story, Grandpa journal or the Tell Me Your Story, Grandma journal. For more ideas, read questions to ask your grandparents or browse advice and life lessons questions.