I did the same thing. Ashley invited my dad to a one week holiday in a mountain cabin. Interview with him about his early life, his childhood, as well as his marriage to my mother.
I did the same thing with my grandfather. He grew up in the 1920s and lived through some rough times.
While I am glad that I did it, I feel a little foolish that I did it only pretty much close to the end of our relationship. How different could things have been, had I been getting to know my parents like that while I was still living with them.
With my kids, I am trying to cultivate and openness about my life outside of being the father that will, hopefully, make an interview with me at the end of my life superfluous.
(Another area where this is extremely powerful is marriage. Often, life gets in the way of really getting to know your partner, especially their early life. I certainly hadn’t paid enough attention to that part of my wife when we were dating. So it seems to be often only when there is a deep crisis that one seeks to really understand one’s partner. This is when you read these books about having the important conversations, learning your partners “love language“, or making an effort to put together a “manual“ of how your partner works, i.e. what calms him, angers him, etc..).
I did the same thing with my grandfather. He grew up in the 1920s and lived through some rough times.
While I am glad that I did it, I feel a little foolish that I did it only pretty much close to the end of our relationship. How different could things have been, had I been getting to know my parents like that while I was still living with them.
With my kids, I am trying to cultivate and openness about my life outside of being the father that will, hopefully, make an interview with me at the end of my life superfluous.
(Another area where this is extremely powerful is marriage. Often, life gets in the way of really getting to know your partner, especially their early life. I certainly hadn’t paid enough attention to that part of my wife when we were dating. So it seems to be often only when there is a deep crisis that one seeks to really understand one’s partner. This is when you read these books about having the important conversations, learning your partners “love language“, or making an effort to put together a “manual“ of how your partner works, i.e. what calms him, angers him, etc..).