What To Do When Your Teen Asks: Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?
I was scraping burnt cheese off a dinner plate when my 16-year-old daughter Lila asked it, the dishwasher humming behind me and a half-empty carton of oat milk left open on the counter. “Mom,” she said, still scrolling TikTok with one elbow propped on the island, “do people really find life worth living?”
I froze mid-scrape. My first instinct was to blurt out the cheery answer everyone expects: Of course! Look at sunsets, look at your friends, look at us! But I’d seen the same clips she’d been scrolling lately—threads of young and old people alike saying they wouldn’t choose to be born if they got a do-over, complaints about endless work and bills and nothing to show for it. I’d thought the same thing when I was her age, sitting in the back of my high school French class, scribbling “what’s the point” in the margins of my textbook.
I leaned against the counter next to her instead of launching into a speech. First, I did the quiet check I’ve learned to do first when any big, dark question comes up: “You know you can tell me straight if you’re hurting really bad right now, yeah? If this isn’t just a thought, it’s a feeling you can’t shake, we’ll call your counselor tomorrow.” She rolled her eyes a little, but not in the annoyed way—in the “I get why you’re asking” way. “No, I’m not suicidal. I’m just wondering. All anyone does is work and pay bills and get old and die. Why bother?”
She had a point, if I was being honest. The adults she sees most are me, her dad, her teachers, our neighbors. I complain about my back after a long day of work. Her dad groans about his commute every Monday morning. Her AP Bio teacher talked last month about how she can’t afford to send her own kid to college, even with a teaching degree. Lila’s right—we don’t hide the tired parts that much, but we never frame them as part of the whole picture. We just act like they’re temporary, until the next vacation or the next promotion, and then we’re tired again.
I pulled out my phone and opened my notes app, scrolled down to a list I started by accident a few years ago, after my mom died. I was in a really bad spot for a while, and every time I had one second that didn’t feel like a total waste, I wrote it down. I never show it to anyone, but I turned the screen toward Lila. The most recent entry, from three days before, was “The cat curled up on my warm lap while I read last night, didn’t move for 45 minutes.” The one before that was “Lila snort-laughed at my bad taco joke so hard she spilled soda on her shirt at dinner.” The one from January was “The 10 year old down the street waved at me when I walked the dog, even though he’s never talked to me.” No big entries. No “got a raise” or “amazing vacation to the beach.” Just small stuff.
I told her I don’t think life is worth living every single day. I told her I have whole weeks where I do nothing but go to work, wash dishes, go to bed, and that’s it. There are weeks where nothing exciting happens, and I’m tired most of the time, and I get it why that feels like it’s not enough. But the thing is, I don’t need it to be amazing all the time. I just need enough of those small moments to add up, and that’s enough for me.
A lot of parenting writing says you need to give kids big answers to big questions, but that never worked for us. The concrete stuff that’s worked here is small, too. First, always check for immediate distress first—you don’t need to panic and jump to crisis mode, but a quick, calm check-in removes the pressure of the question and makes sure they know you’re there if they need more help. Second, never lie and say it’s all wonderful. Teens can spot fake cheer from a mile away, and it just makes them think you don’t get it. Admit the boring, tired, hard parts first, that builds trust way faster. Third, share your own small good bits instead of leading with big achievements or family obligations. Saying “my life is worth it because I have you” puts a huge weight on a kid that they don’t need to carry. My life is worth it for the cat and the taco laughs and the good slushies, too. Fourth, invite them to keep their own list if they want, no rules. They don’t have to add something every week, they don’t have to show it to anyone. It’s just for them.
Lila didn’t say much after I showed her the list. She took a screenshot of it, put her phone away, and helped me load the dishwasher. I didn’t push her to talk more about it, or ask her what she thought of the answer. Big questions don’t need immediate responses.
Last week, we were driving home from soccer practice, it was pouring rain, and we stopped at the gas station for slushies. She was halfway through her blue raspberry one when she said, “I added something to my list, by the way. This slushie is really good, and the rain sounds cool on the roof of the car.” I just nodded and said “that’s a good one.”
I don’t know if she’ll go through phases where she asks this again, and I don’t know if I’ll ever have a better answer than the one I gave her. I still have days where I ask myself the same question, honestly. But for now, this works. We don’t need a grand answer. We just need to be honest about the hard parts, and point out the small good ones that are easy to miss when you’re looking for something big to care about.
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