What was I like as a baby?

Why this question works

No one else can answer it. The first years of your life exist only in your parents' memory and a handful of photographs, and photographs do not say that you refused to nap, loved the vacuum cleaner or laughed every time the dog sneezed. Asking fills in the part of your story that you cannot reach yourself.

It is also a pleasure for your parents. Those early years were intense, and most mothers and fathers enjoy revisiting them from a safe distance. You will hear who you were before you could speak, and you will often recognize yourself: the stubbornness, the curiosity, the early love of music. And as your mom or dad describes you, they describe themselves too, as young, tired, astonished new parents. If you have children of your own, the comparison brings the generations very close.

How to ask it

Get out the baby pictures first, or the baby book if one exists. Go through them together and ask what was happening in each one. If you have a baby in the family now, hold the question until your parent is holding that baby; the memories arrive on their own.

Ask warmly and be ready to laugh at yourself. If you were a difficult sleeper or a champion screamer, take it in good spirit and say thank you for the patience. Follow up by asking how they felt in those months, not only what you did. That turns a list of baby facts into a real conversation between two adults.

Other ways to word it

• What kind of baby was I: easy, fussy, funny?
• What did I do that made you laugh?
• What was my first word, and who was I talking to?
• Could you already see my personality back then?

Follow-up ideas

• Was I a good sleeper?
• What did I love, and what could I not stand?
• What calmed me down when nothing else worked?
• Who did I look like?
• When did I first walk, and where was I headed?
• What is a story about me that you have told a hundred times?
• What part of me has not changed at all?

An example answer

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

"You were the most serious baby anyone had ever seen. You would look at people with this little frown, as if you were deciding whether to hire them. My mother called you the judge. Strangers would do everything to get a smile out of you, and you would just study them."

"But at home you laughed all the time, mostly at your dad. He would put a dish towel on his head and you would lose your mind. You did not sleep through the night until you were fourteen months old, and I walked many miles around that small apartment at three in the morning, singing whatever came into my head. Your first word was 'light.' You would point at every lamp in the house. You still walk into a room and notice things before anybody else does. That started early."

What to write down

Note the facts first: how you slept, what you ate, your first word, when you walked. Then write down the stories, especially the one your parent has told many times. Record the nicknames you were given and who gave them. Add what your parent says has not changed about you. Put a date and a place on the back of the baby pictures you looked at together.

A question like this one has its own page in the Tell Me Your Story journals for Mom and Dad, in the chapter about the day you arrived. With photo pages in the same book, a baby picture and the story behind it can sit side by side.

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