I kinda wanna know about my parents past but I feel awkward asking. They love to interject and add phrases like “look how much worse our lives are and how much we sacrificed for you, you have to be grateful”, which just makes me feel bad for asking, but like… I just want the raw story, and that’s it.
(Idk when is the right time to ask, but hopefully I manage to get those stories before they die, it’d be a shame to lose that part of history.)
My family’s always been pretty open about answering family history questions. Even delighted I took an interest. The times when I was hesitant to ask it involved “scandals” like why a cousin is so much older than the rest of us. But when I asked, they’d just tell me. So I don’t have any suggestions if they’re always hesitant or angry about answering.
We used to look through old pictures when I was young. That was a good time to ask questions. Do they have any old photos you can ask about? You can say you want to copy some into a family album for yourself or future kids.