PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK me what to do with a piece of memoir once it’s written. Should all memoir be published? Not all personal stories should be published, of course. Some should be given as gifts for spouses, children or friends, read as eulogies, or archived for schools or other organizations. And for a while, those were all the answers I had to that question. That is, until now.

Maybe, like me, you wish your parents had written down their tales. Or maybe, like me, you wish you’d merely paid more attention to the stories they told.

What to do? Record a short piece of memoir, and let your kid illustrate it with you. That’s what we did. We used our little Flip camera and made a video of my insane little essay. And I used a digital recorder for the sound, though you can use the recorder built into your computer. And it didn’t hurt a bit that the piece I chose makes me out to be just the littlest bit — um, how shall we say?  —  insane. My daughter liked that.

Maybe you will, too.