1. Start the membership
Begin a membership in your own name, or in theirs. It costs $159 a year and starts with a 30-day free trial, so you can look around before you decide.
Give MyLifeMemoir
Give someone you love the time to be listened to.
Most gifts for a parent are things they do not need. This one asks them about their life for as long as they want to talk about it - and gives the whole family what comes out of it.
How giving it works
2. Sit down together
The best first session is not one they do alone. You hold the tablet, Rosie asks the first question, and your parent answers. That is the whole introduction.
3. Let it become theirs
After a session or two, most people carry on without help - and start remembering things they want to record between visits.
How to introduce it without it landing badly
This is the part people get wrong, so it is worth saying plainly. A gift that arrives framed as “before it’s too late” puts everybody on the back foot. Nobody wants to be handed a deadline for Christmas.
What works, in our experience:
- Ask for the stories rather than offering the software. “I realised I don’t actually know how you and Dad met” is an invitation. “I got you a memoir subscription” is an assignment.
- Start with one easy question, together. Childhood, not legacy. The first session should feel like a conversation you were having anyway.
- Let it be theirs. Their account, their memoir, their decisions about what stays in. Contributions from you go in for their approval - which is exactly the right way round.
- Do not make it a project with a deadline. Ten minutes on a Sunday, for a year, produces far more than a heroic afternoon that never happens.
What the person receiving it actually experiences
Worth knowing before you give it, because it is not what most people expect.
They are not being asked to write anything. They are not being asked to learn software. They see one question at a time, in large type, read aloud, and they answer it by talking - the way they would answer you across a kitchen table.
They can skip anything, stop at any point, and change any word afterwards. There is no progress bar shaming them, no streak to maintain, and nothing that expires. The most common reaction we hear about is surprise at how quickly they stop noticing the device.
For a parent who is not comfortable with technology, there is a simplified phone mode with almost nothing on the screen but the question and one large button.
If you are buying this for both parents
A membership covers one storyteller’s memoir, because two people’s life stories are two different books with two different sets of recordings. Many families start with one parent and add the second later. Either parent can contribute memories and photographs to the other’s memoir without a membership of their own.
Questions about giving it
Can I give it without them knowing in advance?
Yes - start the membership and introduce it in person. We would gently suggest doing the first session together rather than emailing them a login, which is a much colder way for this to arrive.
Do I get to read what they record?
Only if they share it with you. Their memoir is theirs, and that is not a technicality - it is the reason people are willing to be candid in it. Most storytellers share as they go, but it is their decision.
What if they try it and do not take to it?
The 30-day trial asks for no card, so there is no charge to unwind. Download the PDF of whatever they did record - even one chapter is worth keeping - and nothing further happens.
Can several of us contribute?
Yes. Brothers, sisters, grandchildren and old friends can be invited to add their own photographs and memories. Everything they send waits for the storyteller’s approval before it appears.
Is there a printed book at the end?
Building and downloading the book as a PDF is included. A professionally printed and bound copy is an optional extra purchase - a popular thing to give the following Christmas. See pricing.
Keep reading
Give the conversation you keep meaning to have.
Start together with one question.
30-day free trial. No credit card to begin.