What To Do When Your Teen Asks: Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?
Last Tuesday, I was scraping leftover spaghetti into a tupperware after dinner, wiping crumbs off the quartz counter I still haven’t gotten used to, when my 16-year-old Jax leaned against the fridge and asked the question out of the blue. I’d been expecting a request for a ride to the skate park or extra allowance for new grip tape, not this. “Mom, do you actually think most people find life worth living?”
The tupperware lid slipped out of my hand and clattered onto the floor. I stood there for a second, my brain jumping to all the worst case scenarios I’ve memorized as a part-time high school guidance counselor: is he hurting himself? Is something wrong I missed? His best friend had moved across the country three weeks earlier, and he’d been quiet ever since, scrolling TikTok late into the night instead of hanging out with his other friends.
But before I could blurt out the generic cheerleader answer I’ve heard so many parents default to—of course it is, honey, life is such a gift!—I stopped. I remembered being 16, asking my own mom the exact same question after a long stretch of rainy high school days, and how she’d said that exact line, and I’d just shut down, shoved my hands in my pockets and never brought it up again. She didn’t mean to shut me out; she just didn’t know what else to say.
I leaned against the opposite side of the counter, wiped my wet hands on my jeans, and said, “What made you ask that?”
He pushed off the fridge and sat down on the floor, because all the dining chairs were pushed in and we’re too casual to move them just to talk. He said he’d been seeing videos online of people in their 20s and 30s talking about how they just work 40 hours a week, pay their bills, scroll, go to bed, and repeat. He pointed out that my coworker complains about grading and her mortgage every time she sees us at the grocery store. He said his uncle talks about nothing but retiring in 25 years, like the whole point of his life right now is just waiting for it to be over. “It just seems like everyone’s faking it,” he said. “Like no one actually wants to be here.”
I sat down on the floor next to him. I told him I thought the exact same thing when I was his age. I worked at a mall coffee shop through college, and I’d look at all the 30-something regulars who came in every morning for the same latte, complain about their commute, and go work jobs they didn’t seem to like, and I thought that was all there was. I told him I still have days like that, honestly. Last week, when our water heater broke and I had to miss my monthly book club to wait for the repair guy, I spent the whole afternoon sitting on the couch eating cold Cheerios and thinking this whole thing is just garbage. That’s true.
That’s the first thing I tell other parents and teachers when they ask me about this question: don’t lie. Don’t pretend life is one big, happy adventure if it’s not. Your kid can see you dragging after a long day of work. They hear you complaining about the car repair bill. Lying just makes them think their observation is wrong, and that they can’t talk to you about it anymore. Instead of the big cheerful speech, just say what’s true: a lot of life is boring, a lot of it is hard, and some days it doesn’t feel worth it. That’s not a failure. That’s just how it is.
The second thing is, you don’t have to fix the question in one conversation. I didn’t give Jax a big speech about purpose or passion. I just told him that the thing no one tells you when you’re young is that most of the good stuff isn’t the big stuff we see in movies. It’s not the graduation, or the big promotion, or the fancy vacation. It’s the tiny stuff that’s not worth posting about. It’s stopping for an iced coffee that’s just the right temperature on a hot day, and sitting in the car for five extra minutes before you have to go home to a sink full of dishes. It’s laughing so hard at a stupid meme with a friend that you snort. It’s wearing warm socks straight out of the dryer when your feet are cold. It doesn’t have to be big to matter.
As a guidance counselor, when a kid asks me this in study hall, I don’t give a speech. I just ask them to name one tiny thing they did this week that didn’t feel like a total waste. It can be anything: a good french fry, petting a stray dog on the way to school, beating their friend at a video game. No pressure to have a big answer. It just gets them looking for the small stuff, instead of waiting for some big grand purpose to show up.
After we talked that Tuesday, Jax didn’t suddenly jump up and say “Wow, life is great!” He just nodded, grabbed his skateboard, and said he was going to meet some friends at the park. I didn’t push it. A week later, we were driving home from the grocery store in the rain, stopped at a red light, and he mumbled out of nowhere, “You know that thing we talked about? I played Zelda online with Sam until 1am last Saturday, that was pretty good.” I just said “Yeah, that sounds good” and didn’t say anything else.
I found a crumpled piece of notebook paper in his hoodie pocket when I was doing laundry last week. It just said “good carnitas taco, warm socks, Zelda with Sam” in his messy handwriting. I folded it back up and put it back. I don’t know if he’ll ever land on a solid yes to that question. I don’t know if I have. Some days yes, some days no, and that’s okay. The question doesn’t need a perfect answer right now. It just needs to be asked, and heard, without anyone panicking to fix it.
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