Chapter 1: Your First Decade
Write Your Life Story for Posterity - birth through age 9
By Maureen Santini © Copyright 2017-2025. All Rights Reserved.
This is the first in a series of newsletters showing a simple way to write your life story for posterity, decade by decade.
The goal is to preserve the events and details of your life, your way of life, and the times in which you live.
If you aren’t ready yet, consider the reasons why you should write your story.
For everyone else, let’s start.
Your first decade begins at birth and ends at your 10th birthday. The goal is to write everything you recall from the beginning of the decade to the end.
Do not worry about compiling too much information. This is not the time to edit yourself. Write freely!
Infancy
Begin by writing everything you know about the day you were born: your full name at birth, the name of the birthplace, the date and time of birth, the city and state, the names of your parents.
Add birth weight, color of hair and eyes, birthmarks, nationality, citizenship, parents’ citizenship, birth order, names and ages of siblings if any, religion, street address and type of residence. Mention whether you resembled or were named after anyone and why.
Write down the name of the President of the United States when you were born.
If you were baptized, record the place, date, and names of your sponsors, along with memorable activities.
Write everything you recall about your infancy and early childhood, such as health, personality and developmental milestones such as when you began crawling, walking, talking, and other notable events.
Name those who were mainly responsible for your daily care and upbringing and your thoughts on whether they did a good job.
When a memory pops into your head, write it down whether it fits any particular question or category.
School Days — Preschool to Fourth Grade
Children typically are four, five, or six in preschool and kindergarten, six or seven in first grade, seven or eight in second grade, eight or nine in third grade, and nine or 10 in fourth grade.
For each grade, write:
The name of the school.
The city and state of the school.
Your mode of transportation to school.
Names of your teachers and playmates.
Favorite (or dreaded) subjects and extracurricular activities.
Distinctive memories about the school, teachers, playmates and special occasions.
Areas of study you liked or found difficult, especially if any led to thoughts of a future career.
Achievements and challenges.
Family Life
Childhood for most was happy, unhappy, or in-between. Write about positive and negative events and situations as honestly as possible while deciding for yourself the level of detail to include.
Choose from the following list, and from your memory bank, topics that are most relevant to you. Note areas that were especially meaningful, difficult or fun.
Your family life during your first decade.
Your parents’ jobs and the impact they had on the family.
The birth and / or needs of siblings.
Your relationships with parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Special events such as a new bicycle, a family trip or a family move to a new location.
Your routine during the week compared with weekends and holidays.
The ways you celebrated (or didn’t) events such as birthdays and holidays, and civic events such as parades.
Favorite toys, parties, games, pets, clothes, movies, television programs, hobbies, music — whichever were most significant to you.
Your main activities such as skating, bike riding, dolls, dressing up, painting, TV programs, games, music, sports.
Your role at home as well as the general tenor of family life.
Family expectations regarding rules, behavior, and chores.
Chores you mainly were responsible for, if any.
Your first jobs, such as babysitting, delivering newspapers, or mowing lawns.
Visits to and from grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.
Acquisitions that changed life such as a television, car or computer.
Major life events that touched your family, such as death, divorce, or accidents.
Lifestyles often change significantly from generation to generation. Whether you were raised on a farm, or in a city or small town, describe in detail your way of life, such as an average day, and special days such as community celebrations on the Fourth of July and other occasions.
Significant Events
State the extent to which you were aware of local, national or world events such as controversial elections, relatives going off to war, international crises, or school drills. Explain the circumstances.
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These writing prompts hopefully sparked your memory and enabled you to capture the essence of your first decade. Well done!
Since our mission is to convince everyone to write their life stories, please share these posts on social media and with friends and relatives.
The Chapter 2 newsletter will be published on Monday.
Your assignment is to finish writing about your first decade before Monday so that you can start fresh writing about your second decade next week.
The current posting schedule is every five days. If several of you reply to this newsletter saying you prefer once a week, we’ll switch.
We welcome your comments and suggestions on any topic.
Remember: if you complete — or nearly complete — writing about one decade before the next decade’s newsletter is published, you will have written your life story for yourself and for posterity, an incredible accomplishment.
For those who would like guaranteed access to upcoming newsletters, you can subscribe at maureensantini.substack.com/subscribe. The sign-up page highlights ways to pay but you are welcome to choose “no pledge.”