Lena's Tips: A Mother/Daughter Experience at StoryCorps

The first time I heard about StoryCorps, during the Teen Art Connect summer training at the CJM, my immediate reaction was "I need to do that." As a representative of StoryCorps explained how the nonprofit organization was started, shared its mission to preserve the stories of ordinary people, and played some heartwarming snippets of stories, I was already planning out my interview with my mother. I think the magic of StoryCorps for me is that it is an opportunity to record the stories I'd heard my whole life and guarantee that my children, and their children, etc., would always know a piece of my mother.

The night before, I sat down with my mom to map out our interview, which I highly recommend since it gives both participants time to formulate thoughts before the microphones switch on. (The notes we made that night helped a lot to alleviate any awkward pauses or "um"s!). I also looked through the archive of 3-minute clips and preconceived list of questions on the StoryCorps website to get ideas. The questions I compiled spanned from my mother's childhood to early adulthood to the future. After a lengthy discussion, we decided that instead of me only interviewing her, the experience would be most fun as a give-and-take. We planned that she would repeat some questions back to me after answering them. Looking over the detailed list of questions, I felt confident that our conversation would flow well and accomplish the purpose of the interview: to memorialize not just my mom's stories, but our relationship.

When we arrived at the CJM and ducked into the toasty, welcoming StoryCorps booth, I was a little nervous and a lot excited. We jumped right in with my first question, "What is your favorite memory from your childhood?" My mom smiled and began to talk about the mischief she got into with her best friend and partner in crime. The topic shifted to high school, and I was surprised to hear that she "had one foot out the door the whole time." We discussed the differences between our high school experiences and what she hopes college will be like for me, and for the first time I could really imagine my mother as a teenager.
The most thought-provoking question of the interview in my opinion was, "What are you afraid of?" This was something we had never really expressed, so it felt revealing to go in-depth about our fears, and reassuring to get consolation. We ended the interview positively with what we are thankful for about my Grandma and Papa.

Every StoryCorps experience is different. In the interview with my mom, we focused mostly on anecdotes that I had heard before but wanted commemorated, and on capturing our relationship. For others, it may be more of an opportunity to learn something completely new about their interview partner. But in any situation, my advice is to consider what you want remembered about the other person, and to take your StoryCorps experience seriously. It can make a great memory!