What To Do When Your Teen Asks: Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?
The sponge was still soapy in my hand when my 16-year-old son blurted it out, halfway through clearing Tuesday night dinner. His half-eaten bowl of mac and cheese sat on the table, skate shoes propped on the chair across from me, rain streaking the kitchen window. “Do people really find life worth living?” he said, like he was asking if we had any more orange juice.
I almost dropped the sponge. I sub for 10th and 11th grade at our local high school, so I hear all kinds of hard questions every week. But nothing prepares you for your own kid dropping that one when you’re still scraping burnt pasta off the baking sheet. My first instinct was the line we all reach for: Of course it is! Think of all the good things—skateboarding, your friends, that new game you’ve been waiting for. But I bit it back. I remembered what the school counselor said at our last training: when kids ask big, scary questions, they’re not usually asking for an answer. They’re asking if it’s okay to ask the question.
I wiped my hands on my jeans, pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. “That’s such a heavy question,” I said. “What made you think of that tonight?”
He sighed, picked at a loose thread on his hoodie. He’d been scrolling TikTok after the skate park, he said, and watched a 30-something guy talk about working 60 hour weeks to pay a mortgage he can’t afford, his kid in daycare he barely sees, and how he can’t remember the last time he felt happy just existing. Then he talked about my cousin, who got laid off from his tech job two months ago and is now driving for Uber to pay his mortgage, and my neighbor whose kid dropped out of college because she couldn’t afford the tuition anymore. “Everyone just looks so tired,” he said. “And everyone acts like it’s normal, but no one says it sucks. Are all adults just faking it?”
Before I said anything else, I asked the question the counselor told us to always lead with, plain and simple: “Are you feeling like life isn’t worth it for you right now? I won’t panic, I just need to know.” That’s the first concrete thing I tell other parents now: don’t dance around the suicide question because you’re scared it will put the idea in their head. If it’s already there, avoiding it just makes them feel alone. Ask directly, quiet and calm. My son shook his head no. He wasn’t sad, he said. He just wanted to know the truth.
So I told him the truth. I said “Some days I don’t. Last month, when I had that terrible cold and missed three sub jobs and the water heater broke and we had to pay $1800 to fix it, I sat on this floor after you went to bed and thought exactly that. Is this all? Just working, paying for broken stuff, doing it again tomorrow?” His eyes went wide—he’d never heard me say anything like that. I don’t think kids ever hear adults admit that we don’t feel 100% positive about life all the time. We’re too busy trying to set a good example, so we fake it, and that makes kids think they’re broken for having these thoughts.
Then I told him that most days, though, it’s not that big of a yes or no. It’s a bunch of tiny little things that add up, and they’re different for everyone. I pointed out the cherry tree out our front window that we planted when he was 5, that still gives us enough cherries every June to make three pies. I told him about the retired guy who walks his golden retriever past our house every morning, who told me after his wife died that some days the only reason he gets out of bed is to feed bread crumbs to the ducks at the park down the street. That’s enough for him on the bad days, I said. I told him about the cashier at the grocery store who always slips him extra gum when we check out, who told me she hates her night shift but saves every extra dollar to go camping in the Uintas every spring, and that one week a year is what gets her through the other 51.
We ended up driving to the gas station down the road to get blue raspberry slushies, because that’s what we do when we have heavy talks. I didn’t give him a neat answer, and he didn’t suddenly decide life is perfect. We just drove, listened to his playlist, and got slushies.
As a sub, I see this more and more these days. Kids aren’t being dramatic when they ask this question. They’re growing up drowning in bad news about climate change, student debt, housing costs, and all they get from adults is either “cheer up” or the same doomer take they see online. The middle ground—admitting it’s hard, but also that there are tiny things that make it worth showing up—gets lost.
The practical stuff I’ve learned, from both my classroom and my kid, is simple. First, don’t rush to fix the question or cheer them up. Ditching the “everything is awesome” act takes 10 seconds, and it makes them feel seen way more than any motivational speech. Second, always check for safety directly—there’s no trick to it, just ask if they’re hurting that way, it’s not going to hurt anything to ask. Third, you don’t need a grand answer. Just telling them you’ve had the same question, and that most people muddle through with small good things, is enough.
Last weekend we were raking leaves in the yard, and he brought it up again. Said he still thinks the whole system is messed up, that most people work way too hard for way too little. I said I agreed. He kicked a pile of leaves, said “But that slushie was good the other night.” I said yeah, it was.
We haven’t solved the question. I don’t think we ever will. But now he knows he can ask it, and I won’t lie to him about the answer. That’s enough for now.
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