What your children will want to know about you
Written by Daniel Tanguay, founder of Solexi.ai.
Children almost never ask the real questions at the right time. They ask them ten years too late, usually after a death, when the only person who could answer is gone.
The questions that always come back
Grieving relatives rarely look for numbers. They look for explanations and for faces.
- What were you like before you were my parent?
- Why did we really leave that place?
- Who are the people in this photo?
- Why did you never talk about that period?
- Were you happy?
Answering in one page, not writing a memoir
You do not need a book. One plainly written page per topic covers most of what will be missing.
A good answer holds a fact, an approximate date and an emotion. That is the minimum for a memory to stand on its own.
- Your childhood in ten lines: place, house, atmosphere.
- Your parents as people, not as roles.
- The moment your life changed direction.
- What you are proud of, and what it cost you.
- How you met the other parent.
What children regret not having
Almost all of them name the same three things: the voice, the names on the photos, and the explanation behind the silences. None of the three can be recovered afterwards.
If you only do one thing, record twenty minutes of your voice describing your childhood. It is the best effort-to-value action available.
Put it where they will find it
Write it, keep it with the practical documents, and tell someone. A text found by accident three years later has only done half its job.
Date every page: you will change your mind, and the successive versions are interesting in themselves.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to tell everything, even the hard parts?
You owe nothing. But saying a subject exists and that you prefer not to detail it is better than total silence — silence gets filled with assumptions.
At what age should these texts be shared?
Most families choose adulthood, or a specific milestone (coming of age, marriage, a birth). Write your intention down so nobody has to guess.
What if my children are not interested today?
They usually are not, and that changes around thirty or forty. Write for the adult they will be, not the child they are.
Solexi does not replace a legal will, a notary or a lawyer. Solexi helps you gather, organize and pass on your information.