Invest in Your Family's Story: A Sliding Scale of Options

The Wall Street Journal recently published a piece about a new benefit financial services firms are offering their “ultrahigh-net worth clients:” family history chronicling. Companies such as Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo are employing in-house teams or outsourcing services to professional genealogists and personal historians to meet the needs of clients who want to know “the good, the bad, and the ugly of where they came from.” The result is a book or video that tells “the whole story.”

I loved everything about the article except one thing. And it’s a big thing:

Preserving one’s family history need not be—and is not—reserved for the ultra-rich.

Yes, it’s true, personal historians need to make a living too, and when you engage one for a full-length video or multi-hundred page memoir, you should expect to spend a chunk of money. But there are so many options and, cliché as it may sound, options that meet every budget.

• Write it yourself—Many of my clients write their own books. I serve as their on-call guide to help with brainstorming, organization, editing, and production. Books and online resources are also available to guide you through the process.

• Take a class—Inexpensive (and even free) memoir writing workshops are offered by many personal historians and community centers across the country. Go online or check with your local library to see what’s available in your area.

• Tell it in pictures—Go through that enormous box of photos or overflowing photo album and select pictures of the key people, places, and milestones from your life. Write your memories—the who, what, when, and where—of each picture. Place the photos and memories in a sturdy album or ask a personal historian to help you create a bound book.

• Tell it in stages—The process of writing your family’s history may take years, and definitely will take months. Determine a monthly or even yearly budget that feels reasonable and find a personal historian who will bill you incrementally (most will).

And for those who want a full-length book or video, check around. The cost may be far more reasonable than you suspect. I’ve yet to work with an “ultrahigh-net worth client” and I’ve helped many write their memoirs.

Every family has a story. Don’t let money to keep you from investing in yours.

Share Your Family's Story and Save Your Family's Life

Most often, my clients describe the process of writing their family history as “fascinating” and “cathartic.” Other words that crop up are “illuminating,” “therapeutic,” and “thought-provoking.” But not until I read a recent article in the Washington Post did I consider that writing one’s family history could be legitimately referred to as “life-saving.”

The article – Did your aunt have cancer? Knowing could save your life.—cites powerful data correlating family medical history and the development of disease. Consider these numbers: One in three cancers has a genetic component; six in ten cases of alcoholism do. Diabetes, dementia, heart disease, asthma, and schizophrenia are all partly hereditary. And the list goes on.

According to geneticist Joe Nadeau, “The conventional family history is still the best predictor of disease risk.”

Few sit down and discuss family medical history as a matter of course. And with the absence of this information, generations are unaware of their risk for disease. Risks which, today, often can be treated preemptively. By writing family memoirs, and including the health history of immediate relatives, authors can share life-saving information with children, grandchildren, and beyond.

Those who seek to include this information – good for you! – should be aware of potential barriers that await them in their research. Stigma associated with mental illness, for example, may keep some from disclosing a relative’s schizophrenia or depression, diseases which are both genetic and treatable with today’s medicine. A family’s battle with alcoholism is often kept under wraps, preventing younger generations from heeding caution or abstention when making their own choices around alcohol. Even breast cancer was considered shameful not too long ago. When Grandma stays mum about her breast cancer saga, she prevents future generations from pursuing today’s science, which may reduce or even eliminate their chances of developing the disease.

As new terminologies come into vogue, today’s memoirists struggle with correctly interpreting medical jargon from yesteryear. Tuberculosis, epilepsy, and stroke, for example, all went by different names just a few decades ago (consumption, falling sickness, and apoplexy, respectively). There must be clear definitions when different generations come together to review medical history.

Regardless of what keeps us from discussing our health – whether it’s stigma, language, or the always-popular denial – family stories allow for the opportunity to break through barriers and share the truth of genetics. By sharing your history, you remove shame from the conversation and convey the reality of being human in a world with disease. When you disclose your family’s medical history with your children and grandchildren, you give them the gift of knowledge.

So yes, writing your family story indeed can be “life-saving.”  

Talk to a personal historian about starting your memoirs today.

First Jobs—Another Forever Memory

Just days after posting my last blog on the “forever memories” associated with first loves, an email arrived in my inbox suggesting that forever memories are associated with another first as well: first jobs. Immediately I knew the premise was true. Who doesn’t remember their first job?

The stretched subject line of the email queried: “Think back to your first job. What do you wish you’d known?” When opened, the email featured an article, written by President Barack Obama, titled “Here’s the Scoop. Why My First Job Mattered.”

(Spoiler Alert…he worked at Baskin Robbins.)

I always ask clients about their first jobs. First bosses. First hourly rates. First paychecks. Whether we go on to serve as doctors or moms or U.S. Presidents, most of us can’t help but smile when we recall that very important first in our life and the pride we felt for being paid what today amounts to pennies per hour.

In a life story that undoubtedly contains some tough periods, it’s amusing to look back at where we started when our sole financial goal was to have money for a soda or movie. First jobs, unlike first loves, usually end without heartache. When we’ve had enough of scooping ice cream, when we’re ready to step one rung higher on the professional ladder, we move on. First jobs are usually pretty simple.

My husband earned his first paycheck as a Turkey Tucker. Yes, a Turkey Tucker. Bulky, frozen turkeys were tossed down a funnel-type machine and my husband retrieved them one at a time and squeezed together the icy legs of the icy turkey into a metal contraption. Sounds glorious, doesn’t it?

Check out these other funny first jobs:

• Pope Francis: Nightclub bouncer
• Mitt Romney: Chauffeur
• Elvis Presley: Truck driver
• Marlon Brando: Ditch digger
• Bill Gates: Congressional page
• Oprah Winfrey: Grocery store cashier

When you work with a personal historian or write your own memoir, remember to spend a few paragraphs on your first job. What were you paid (you have to include this!)? What were your responsibilities? How did you spend your first paycheck?

My husband remained a Turkey Tucker for one week.

How did you do?

First Loves—Forever Memories

It doesn’t matter if it was 65 years ago. It doesn’t matter if it lasted just one summer. And it doesn’t matter if you went on to find a far-better-suited partner, one who provided you with children and a lifetime of love and care.

Memories of first loves are etched into our brains forever.

And—as such—they should be etched into our life stories as well.

Ask anyone about their first love and they’ll remember. The first butterflies, the first kiss, and the agony of that first crack in a once unscathed heart.

First loves are their own category. It’s not just you, it’s everyone.

According to a recent article in The Washington Post, there’s a scientific reason why first loves leave permanent marks. The intensity of that earliest relationship, experts say, is similar to that of skydiving. You remember the first time you jump out of a plane…even if future jumps are from a higher altitude or result in a better landing. There’s just something about that initial jump.

Experts point to other reasons for the fervor of first loves:

• Arousal, excitement, fear, and anxiety—powerful emotions that accompany a love relationship—are intensified when they occur during adolescence, a time when everything feels exaggerated.
• Many experience a “memory bump” between the ages of 15 and 26. So many “firsts” occur during these critical years and people tend to remember those firsts fondly.
• Our first love becomes the standard for which all future relationships are compared. We hold it in our memory as the ideal.

Whatever the reason, if you’re like many people and still remember the ferocity of that first love, be sure to give him or her a few pages in your memoirs. Honor the role they played in your life and the way they informed your selection of future loves. Tell your readers—some of whom may be teenagers themselves—that they too will survive a broken heart.

And if you’re among the few whose first love was their only love, you need to share that too. Highlight that fact in bold, explain why First Love never needed a successor.

Memoirs are filled with stories of your spouse and children, the most central people in your life. But who came before them? Who stole your heart first?

They were important too. Tell their story.

Do You Own Your Story?

The answer to this blog’s title – “Do You Own Your Story” – at first glance seems obvious. Of course you do, right? It’s your story, your life. You have the right to share it – or not – with whomever you’d like. Ask any therapist and she’ll tell you the same thing.

But ask a lawyer, and you’ll get another answer.

Because, unfortunately, it’s not so simple. The truth is your life intersects with the lives of many others. Parents, children, siblings, spouses, friends. The list goes on and on. And while you most definitely own your history, you don’t own theirs.

That cute story about how you tattle-tailed on your brother when you were nine (and he was rewarded with a month of detention at school) may not be so cute to your brother. Your mother may not be keen on you divulging your childhood memories of parental discord. And your first husband? Don’t even start with him.

Like I said, not so simple.

When I work with clients, I advise them of their three options when it comes to writing of significant others in their life:

Tell the whole truth

Readers trust authors who name names and share details. The more descriptive, the better, and vague, anonymous caricatures never won any Pulitzers. As memoir readers, we want to really see and feel what you did. Adopt Anne Lamott’s approach in Bird by Bird: “Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” But be prepared: there may be consequences. And a consult with a lawyer is never a bad idea.

Tell most of the truth

Yes, you tattle-tailed on your brother, but the principal understood and chalked it off to youth. Change the details: names, dates, locations, or any relevant information that could upset said brother. You get the idea. Share the gist of the story but with an eye on keeping the peace.

Don't tell

All memoir writers have to balance their quest for sharing the truth with protecting the anonymity of others in their life. It’s not easy, especially when your wish for truth and their wish for anonymity occupy huge blocks of the same space. If you want to tell your story, consider writing it for your own catharsis with no intention of sharing it broadly (the choice most of my clients make). Or tell only part of your story, leaving out those blocks that are most contentious. Maybe you don't even have a brother according to your narrative.

Yes, you own your life story. That’s undeniable. But there are many real-life characters in your story who may feel real-life pain/anger/disappointment once your book is released. They own their own lives too.

So how much to tell? There is no one right answer to this question but it is a question that should be seriously considered before the fact. Talk to your brother, check in with your mother. Take their temperature.

And, of course, please let me know if I can help.