"30 Questions to Ask Your Kid Instead of “How Was Your Day?”"

"That question actually sucks. Far from a conversation starter, it’s uninspired, overwhelmingly open ended, and frankly, completely boring. So as an alternative, I’ve compiled a list of questions that my kid will answer with more than a single word or grunt."

https://medium.com/synapse/30-questions-to-ask-your-kid-instead-of-how-was-your-day-26be75072f13

!! I've never been able to answer "how was your day". It's sort of like asking me "characterize the nature of your life in a brief, chatty, conversational sentence". Like, long before I know what my actual answer is to that question on any given day, I know what people WANT to hear. They want to hear "good!" followed by a brief story that affirms the positive nature of my day while also reaffirming what the question asked understands about me.

For example, when I was little and my mom asked me, she wanted to hear "good - we had a math pop quiz and I got 100%!" or "good - my friends and I made up a new game during recess!". As an adult, when I meet an acquaintance for coffee or am catching up with a friend, they want to hear "good" and some tight little packaged story that provides insight into the way my life is while confirming their perception of me. Like "good - I've been working on a project for a while at work and today I got dome really positive feedback on my progress."

But how was my day? Like, usually, it has good and bad things and neutral or nuanced things and stuff I want to share and stuff I don't and stuff that's really boring that I will soon forget ever happened. Rarely is my day clearly good or bad; rarely do I have any packaged description that pops to mind. And, because this question often isn't really a question, it's just a way we automatically start conversations or, at most, a way to request a little package version of our days, I will usually say "fine" and hope we move on.

Some people seem to have the ability to describe what happened in their day and tell a little story. I think about this sometimes, the differences between how-was-your-day answerers and non-answerers. And how it sometimes seems like some people need someone to tell their day to, every day.

And, in conclusion, I would much prefer being asked some version of the questions this mom cane up with.