What To Do When Your Teen Asks: Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?
The lemon dish soap was still sticky on my wrists when Lila asked. I was folding her soccer hoodies on the coffee table, leftover carnitas tacos wrapped in foil in the fridge, the dryer clicking off down the basement stairs like it did every Sunday night. She’d been scrolling her phone for 20 minutes, silent, when she set it face down and said, “Mom. Do people actually find life worth living?” I fumbled a striped sock, almost knocking over my half-empty mug of cold tea. I’d just been mentally running through the grocery list for the week, wondering if we really needed another box of granola bars. This wasn’t the conversation I’d planned to have before 8 pm.
My first instinct was the scripted one: Of course it is! What a silly question. But I swallowed that. I remembered being 16, sitting at my own mom’s kitchen table asking her almost the exact same thing after reading a beat-up copy of The Stranger I’d checked out from the library. She’d panicked, immediately asked if I was planning to hurt myself, called my dad in from the garage, turned a casual philosophical question into a three-hour intervention. I left the table feeling like I’d done something wrong, and never brought it up again.
So I pushed the laundry basket to the side and sat down next to her on the couch. I said, “What made you ask that?” That’s the first thing I’ve learned to do, after years of hearing this question from my own kid and the students I sub for at the local high school: don’t jump to fix it, don’t jump to crisis mode, just ask where it’s coming from.
She told me she’d been on a thread for teens talking about what adulthood is actually like, and dozens of people in their 20s and 30s were commenting that they only stay alive for their parents or their kids, that most days are just work and bills and waiting for the weekend that’s over before it starts. “They say all the happy stuff is just a lie we’re told to keep us working,” she said. “Is that true?”
As a part-time high school sub, I hear this question at least once a month, usually between periods when we’re waiting for the main teacher to get back from a meeting. Kids this age are caught between two extreme stories about adulthood. One is the social media story: life is a string of tropical vacations, promotion celebrations, and perfect group dinners. The other is the doomscroll story: everything is broken, climate change will end everything, no one will ever afford a house, and all adults just drag themselves miserably to the grave. They’re not being dramatic for attention. They’re just trying to figure out which story, if any, is real.
I didn’t give her the sugarcoated answer I was supposed to. I told her the truth. I said, “Most days aren’t the big exciting stuff they show in movies. I have days where I hate subbing, where I fight with your dad about forgetting to take the trash out, where I wish I could just pull the covers over my head and ignore all the texts and car maintenance and doctor’s appointments that need doing. A lot of life is just boring, annoying stuff that no one posts about. That part the people on the thread got right.” I saw her lean in, because I don’t think anyone had ever admitted that to her before.
Then I said, “But that’s not all it is. The good stuff is just smaller than they tell you. Last Tuesday, I stopped for coffee on the way to work, and the barista remembered I take oat milk with one sugar. That two-minute interaction was better than any big holiday I can remember. Last week after your game, we sat on the porch and ate those popsicles that melted all over your hands. That was better than any trip to Disney we ever took.”
After that first conversation, I started this low-effort habit at dinner that I tell other parents about. We don’t do that forced “best part of your day” thing that schools make kids do, which always feels fake if you had a bad day. Instead, we go around the table and say one tiny thing that wasn’t terrible. It can be anything: “The bus came right when I got to the stop” or “My French fries were extra crispy” or “My cat curled up on my lap while I did homework.” It takes 30 seconds, no one has to come up with a big amazing win. It just trains all of us to notice the small bits that add up, instead of only looking for the big life moments that are supposed to make us happy.
The other concrete thing I share with other parents and teachers: if your kid hasn’t shown consistent signs of suicidal thoughts or persistent sadness, don’t turn this into an emergency. This question is almost always a search for truth, not a cry for immediate intervention. Overreacting just teaches kids that they can’t bring hard, messy questions to you next time. Of course, if they’ve been withdrawn, sleeping too much or too little, or talking about hurting themselves, reach out to a provider right away. But most of the time, you don’t need to call the therapist mid-conversation. You just need to listen.
It’s not like that first conversation fixed everything. Last week, Lila asked me again after we watched a news story about the latest wildfire out west. She said, “How can life be worth it when all this terrible stuff keeps happening?” I didn’t give her a big speech this time. I just said, “I get why you’d ask that. Some days it’s really hard to believe it is.” Then we got mint chocolate chip ice cream from the gas station down the street and watched that silly cat rescue show she likes.
Some days she’s still convinced all adults are lying. Some days I’m convinced all adults are lying. The tiny not-terrible thing habit works more often than not, but it doesn’t work every time. I don’t have a perfect answer to give her. I just keep letting her ask, and keep telling her the truth, as messy as it is. That’s all I can do, right?
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