Week Sixteen: Your Children

Your Child or Your Children is the topic of this week's prompts. Is there anything more amazing than becoming a parent? The responsibilities, the joys, the trials...probably few things create more significance--for better or worse--in our lives than that of the parent-child relationship, whether it is the one with our own parents or the one with our children.

If you are not a parent, you may wish to choose a person in your life that you may look upon as a surrogate child, whether a step-child, niece, nephew, cousin, or family friend. You may also wish to share about the choice--or lack of choice--involved in not having children and how that affects your life.

*How many children did you want to have? How many do you have?

*Did you have gender preferences (one boy and one girl, or all girls, etc.), and if so, why? What did you get?

*What are the names of your children? Who were they named for and why?

*When and where were each of them born?

*Did you adopt? Write about your adoption experience: how long you had to wait, which country you adopted from, open or closed adoption, etc.

*If you had biological children, was it difficult to conceive? If so, write about that experience.

*Share any stories you remember from the pregnancies of each child.

*Share the story of each child's birth.

*Write about anything significant that you remember from the different stages each child has gone through, such as infancy, toddlerhood, the first day of Kindergarten, elementary, middle or high school, college, marriage, being a parent themselves.

*Describe each child's personality, interests, and talents.

*Describe each child's features and build.

*Describe the relationship of each of your children to each other and to your spouse.

*Write down the wish you have for each child's future.

Add favorite photos of each of your children to your journal.

Our topic next week will be Your Pets.

Week Nine: Letters to Your Siblings' Descendants

The prompt for Week Nine is an expansion of some of the prompts from Week Three: Your Immediate Family. Week Nine focuses on your siblings, but we're going to take a slightly different approach from the question-and-answer format. For each of your siblings, write a letter to their future descendants of 50 years from now. Imagine that you are the only one left to describe the lives of your siblings to their descendants (and for some of you, this may be so). Incorporate the important events, locations, and people of your siblings' lives, but most importantly, describe the things that make them "real," which are difficult for the family historian to discover: their personalities, their flaws and strengths, their passions and dislikes, their relationship with you.

Obviously, if you have many siblings, this assignment will take a while. You may choose to write one letter a day, or to write one now and each of the others around the time of your siblings' birthdays, as a way to honor them. Don't forget half- and step-siblings.

If you are an only child, you can adapt this for favorite cousins or even close friends.

You can include photos of your siblings at different ages of their lives, and photos that include both of you. Make copies of these letters and share them with your siblings (cousins, friends) and/or their descendants. They would make nice gifts at birthdays, anniversaries, or reunions.

Week Ten will focus on your mother and her life.

Week Three: Your Immediate Family

This week's topic is the structure of the immediate family you were raised in. Later prompts will ask for more details on certain members of this family; this one is simply a general overview. Remember to respect the privacy of living people by editing any personal information that you place online.

*Who were the adults that lived in your household growing up? Were they your parents, step-parents, uncles and/or aunts, grandparents, or friends/significant others of your parents?

*Who were the children that lived in your household growing up? Were they your siblings, half- or step-siblings, cousins, or others?

*If you were a child of divorced or separated parents, how did you share your time between the two households?

*Are you an adopted child (either adopted by a couple or by a step-parent)? What are your thoughts and feelings about your adoption? What are your thoughts and feelings about your birth parent(s)? How did your adoption impact you? If you have siblings (biological or adoptive), how did your adoption impact your relationship with them? (This set of questions could be a separate blog.)

*Were you an only child? If so, do you prefer your only child status, or do you wish you had siblings? Why or why not? If you have siblings, where were you in the birth order? After reading this, do you feel like you are a typical person for your birth order? (A fun survey to take is the Birth Order Predictor...does it fit you?)

*Did you have to share a bedroom? How did that work out?

*Which adult did you feel closest to, and why? Did this relationship change as you became an adult?

*Which sibling/other child did you feel closest to, and why? Did this relationship change as you became an adult?

Find a group shot or two of your family and add them to your journal. Don't forget to label it!

Next week's prompt topics will be about your elementary school life. Happy Journaling!