Who was your best friend growing up?

Why this question works

A best friend is a witness to the years your parent rarely talks about. Asking about that friend lets your mom or dad describe their young self from the outside: what the two of them did, what they laughed at, what they got away with. It is often easier to tell a story about "us" than a story about "me," so the details come freely.

The question also carries a second story inside it: what happened to the friendship. Some best friends are still a phone call away, and some drifted when a family moved or life got busy. Either way, your parent usually speaks of them with real warmth. And sometimes this conversation ends with them picking up the phone or writing a letter to that old friend the same week, which is a lovely thing to have set in motion.

How to ask it

Ask it somewhere relaxed, like a long drive or while cooking together. If your parent has an old yearbook or a shoebox of photos, pull it out and ask them to point to the friend. A face on a page will bring back the nickname, the house and the bicycle.

Keep it playful. You are asking for adventures, so signal that you want the real version: "What did you two get up to?" works better than a formal question. If your parent hesitates over a story that makes them look less than perfect, laugh with them. Those are the stories children treasure most about their parents, at any age.

Other ways to word it

• Who did you spend all your time with as a kid?
• Who was your partner in crime growing up?
• How did you and your best friend meet?
• Are you still in touch with anyone from back then?

Follow-up ideas

• What did the two of you do on a free afternoon?
• What was their house like, and their family?
• What is the most trouble you got into together?
• Did you ever have a big falling-out? How did you make up?
• What did they understand about you that nobody else did?
• Where are they now, and when did you last talk?
• What would you say to them if they walked in right now?

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.

"The boy who lived across the alley. We met when we were five, because his dog got into our yard, and from then on we were at one house or the other every day until we were eighteen. His mother fed me so often that she set my place without asking."

"We built a go-kart out of a lawn mower engine when we were twelve. It had no brakes. We found that out at the bottom of the hill, in a hedge. Neither of us told our parents the real story for about twenty years. He moved to another state after high school, and we still call each other on our birthdays. He is the only person alive who remembers that hedge the way I do."

What to write down

Write down the friend's full name and nickname, how the two of them met and where each of them lived. Record one adventure in full, with the details your parent laughed about. Note where the friend is now and when they last spoke. If your parent decides to get back in touch, write down how that goes as well; it makes a fine second chapter to the same story.

The Tell Me Your Story journals for Dad and Mom include a question like this one in the chapter on school days, with a full page for the answer. It is the kind of page that tends to grow: once the best friend is written down, the adventures follow.

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 school days questions.