06/05/2026
The parent thinks: “My grown child isn’t interested in my past.”
The adult child thinks: “My parent doesn’t want to talk about their past.”
Often, they’re both wrong.
For many, this startling misunderstanding explains why a grown child may be reluctant to ask his parents to write their life stories and why parents are reluctant to ask if their children are interested in their life stories.
We think we understand family members far better than we actually do, according to psychologists Thalia Vorauer and Jennifer J. Cameron.
“People show a robust illusion of transparency about close others,” they wrote.
On the one hand, most parents admit they wish their adult children would ask them more about their lives.
On the other hand, many adult children regret not asking more about their parents’ lives before it was too late, according to the Hospice Foundation of America.
“People consistently underestimate how much others are interested in their thoughts and feelings,” says Nicholas Epley, a behavioral scientist who studies how badly we predict other people’s social desires.
That’s not all.
The literature is full of ways in which people misread each other. Family members are a bit better at understanding each other compared with others but there is still plenty of misjudgment.
This phenomenon of miscalculating others goes even deeper.
“People underestimate how much their conversation partners like them,” says Erica Boothby, a social psychologist whose research on the “Liking Gap” explores how severely we misread our everyday social interactions.
In fact, Ancestry surveys have found that more than half of adult children wish they knew more about their parents’ happiest moments. And 82 percent wish they had talked to older relatives more.
“Many older adults feel a strong desire to share their life experiences with younger generations,” according to the National Institute on Aging.
Adult children and their parents often both want deeper disclosure, but each side mistakenly assumes the other doesn’t. This mutual misreading leads to decades of missed stories, unasked questions, and a kind of emotional stalemate.
Adult children may hesitate to ask parents for their life stories for many reasons including:
They think they already know their parents’ stories even though research shows we dramatically overestimate how much we know about close others.
Each person privately wants more openness and more stories but assumes the other person doesn’t want it. Both are wrong, but neither side corrects the misunderstanding.
A parent may have brushed off a question a decade or two ago because the child was too young, the topic felt too complex at the time, or the parent wasn’t ready. Now, the adult child thinks the topic is off limits but the parent has matured and may now want to talk.
We get stuck in old roles: kids think they shouldn’t pry. Parents think they shouldn’t burden their kids. Both sides adhere to outdated parent-child roles long after they’ve stopped being useful.
“Most parents say they wish their adult children asked more about their lives,” according to Pew Research Center.
Solution: Write a Letter Inviting Your Parents to Share their Life Stories
There are ways to correct the mutual miscalculation and emotional stalemate that prevent parents and grown children from getting on the same page.
For instance, grown children might write a letter to their parents.
The letter should convey respect, gratitude, and genuine interest in learning more about the lives of their parents beyond their roles as parents.
The letter presents the idea of the parent disclosing stories about their lives as a request.
By expressing genuine interest in knowing more about the parents’ lives, grown children can correct any impression that such disclosure might be burdensome.
Over the last several years, I’ve created a simple way people can write their life stories for posterity even if they can’t type. Rather than expect parents to start drafting a complicated memoir or autobiography — if they have no such inclination – my method shows them how to begin with the day of their birth and to continue writing basic details of their lives chronologically, decade by decade.
For more details subscribe below.
By Maureen Santini © Copyright 2017-2026. All Rights Reserved.
Maureen Santini, a former journalist, created a simple way for everyone to write their life story. Subscribe here or at
A simple method enabling everyone to write their life story, one decade at a time. Click to read Write Your Life Story for Posterity, by Maureen Santini, a Substack publication.
