What To Do When Your Teen Asks ‘Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?’
It was 7:30 on a Tuesday, I was scraping congealed alfredo off chipped pasta plates into the garbage disposal, water running warm over my wrists. My 16-year-old Javi was perched on the end of the kitchen counter, one sock off, scrolling TikTok while we waited for his dad to get home with ice cream. The dish soap smelled like lavender, the one he’d picked out because the bottle was purple, and the fridge hummed low in the background. Then he didn’t look up from his phone and just said it: “Mom, do people really find life worth living?”
I almost dropped the plate I was holding. It’s not the kind of question you expect mid-dinner cleanup, after a day of him moping about AP Bio homework and begging for a later curfew. My first instinct was the script we all know: Of course it is! Look at all the amazing things you have to look forward to! But I stopped, because I’d just spent my lunch break scrolling the same kind of videos he was watching, the ones where 20-somethings talk about working 60 hour weeks just to afford rent and forgetting what it feels like to have fun. And I knew what he was seeing: every adult he knows is tired a lot of the time. I leave for work before the sun comes up some days, I fall asleep on the couch watching TV before 9 pm more often than not. His soccer coach spends half of every practice stressing about fundraiser car washes, his dad worries about the leaking roof we can’t afford to fix yet.
I turned off the water, wiped my hands on my jeans, and leaned against the opposite counter. I said, “What made you ask that?” That’s the first thing I’ve started doing now, when big questions pop up, just ask instead of answering. I used to jump in to fix any bad feeling immediately, like it was a spill I had to wipe up before it stained the carpet. But it turns out, most of the time, teens just want to say the quiet thing out loud, not get a 20 minute speech about gratitude.
Javi finally looked up from his phone. He said everyone online is always saying most people just work until they die, and all the big stuff people get excited about—college, a job, a house—just ends up being more stress. “You’re always tired,” he said, like it was a fact I couldn’t argue with. “Is it just worth it to be tired all the time?”
I didn’t lie. I said, “Some days, no. Last Wednesday, when I spilled coffee all over my work laptop right before my big presentation, then the car battery died in the grocery store parking lot, and I forgot to buy your oat milk so you had to drink plain water with dinner? That day, I sat in the driveway for 10 minutes after I got home thinking this is just one annoying thing after another, and I don’t know if it’s worth it.” He blinked, like he wasn’t expecting me to say that. I think most kids assume adults have it all figured out, that we never have the same messy doubts they do. Faking constant positivity just makes them think their doubts are wrong, that something’s wrong with them for asking.
Then I told him the other part. I said most days, it’s not the big stuff that makes it worth it. It’s not graduation or a big vacation or buying a house. It’s the tiny stuff you don’t post about. It’s him leaving his half-empty soda can on the stairs every single day, and me yelling about it, but when I pick it up I remember when he was 7 and couldn’t open a can by himself, and he’d stand by the fridge waiting for me to do it, and I’d complain then too. It’s the 10 minutes after he leaves for soccer practice, when I sit on the front porch and eat the last chocolate chip cookie I baked, and watch the squirrels steal sunflower seeds out of the bird feeder. It’s when we order pizza on Friday night and the pizza guy gets here 20 minutes early and it’s still hot. That’s the stuff that adds up, I told him.
After that conversation, I changed one small thing we do at dinner. Instead of asking “how was your day?” which always gets a one-word answer of “fine,” I ask “what’s one tiny thing that didn’t totally suck today?” It’s a low-effort question, no big emotional talk required. Some days Javi just rolls his eyes and says “the taco truck guy gave me extra guac for free.” Some days he says “nothing, everything sucked.” I don’t push it when he says that. I just say “that sucks, maybe tomorrow will have one good thing.”
The only hard line I have is this: if he goes a couple weeks saying every day sucks, and he stops going to practice or hanging out with his friends or doing the things he usually likes, I’ll call the school counselor and get him an appointment. Doubt isn’t a crisis on its own, but persistent hopelessness that changes how you live is, and that’s when you need extra help. You don’t have to handle every big question on your own, but you also don’t have to panic every time your kid asks one.
Last night, we were back in the same kitchen, cleaning up after tacos, Javi perched on the same counter. He looked up from his phone and said “I still think everyone’s lying about how great life is supposed to be.” I nodded, and I said “I think you’re right, most people are lying about that.” He grabbed the last taco shell off the plate, pulled his hoodie on, and said he was going to go walk to the gas station with his friend to get slushies. I said be back by 10, and he waved and left.
We didn’t solve the big question that night. I don’t think we ever will. Some days Javi still thinks it’s not worth it, some days I do too. Right now, that’s okay. We’re just collecting the extra guac and hot pizza and 10 minutes of porch cookie time, one day at a time.
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