When Your Teen Asks ‘Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?’: A Teacher and Mom’s Perspective
The crumbs of pepperoni pizza were still stuck to the edge of the kitchen table when my 16-year-old son looked up from his phone and asked it, casual as he’d ask if we had more laundry detergent. “Do people really find life worth living?” The dishwasher hummed in the background, his half-finished college application essay sat open on the counter, and I froze mid-wipe of a coffee mug ring. I’ve taught 11th grade English for 12 years, and I’d heard that question just three days earlier from Lila, a quiet student who never spoke up after class. I’d trained for crisis response, for talking to kids who struggle with anxiety, but when your own kid says it, your brain goes blank. I almost blurted the line we all do: “Of course it is! You have so much to live for.” But I remembered what Lila told me after her school counselor said that exact line. “It just made me feel like I was wrong for even asking,” she’d mumbled, kicking a rock on the sidewalk outside the gym. So I wiped my hands on my stained jeans, pulled out the chair across from him, and sat down. “What made you ask that?” I said.
He explained he’d stumbled on a Reddit thread full of people in their 30s talking about how they work 40 hours a week just to pay rent and bills, never get to do the things they dreamed of as teenagers, and mostly just go through the motions. He’s been buried in SAT practice and college application drafts for two months, and the whole thing started to feel like proof that we’re all just climbing a hill that doesn’t lead anywhere worth going.
I didn’t give him a speech about ambition or meaning. I told him the truth: Two weeks earlier, I’d gotten a flat tire on the way to school, missed my only prep period to get it changed, found out three of my best students hadn’t turned in their major research papers, got home to find the AC broken, and sat on my front porch step for 20 minutes drinking warm soda thinking this is just stupid, one thing after another, what’s the point of all this rushing. I told him I didn’t post that feeling on Instagram, I didn’t talk about it at parent-teacher night, but it was how I felt that day, and that was okay.
Then I told him about the thing I started doing with students after Lila first asked me the same question, and suggested we try it right then: name three tiny things that didn’t suck this week. No big achievements, no “getting into college” or “winning a championship” stuff, just tiny, unremarkable things.
He thought for a minute, twisting his soda can between his hands. “The new salted caramel ice cream at the gas station down the street is actually really good. We won our JV basketball game last Friday. And when I had a cold last week, Mochi slept on my chest all night and didn’t even try to steal my blanket.” I went next: “The barista at the shop by school remembers I take my oat latte with extra cinnamon. I rewatched my favorite 90s rom-com last Sunday and it was still funny. And my best friend sent me a photo of her new baby duck that just follows her around the yard.”
Over the past few months of hearing this question from my own kid and my students, I’ve picked up a few small, concrete things that work better than any pre-written pep talk. First, don’t panic. It’s not always a cry for emergency help (obviously, if a kid talks about hurting themselves, you get them professional support right away). Most of the time, it’s just a teenager working through the fact that they’re growing up and realizing the adult world isn’t the perfect, happy story we sell to kids. They don’t need you to fix the question immediately—they just need you to not act like asking it is scary or wrong.
Second, don’t lie and pretend you never feel that way. Sharing your own small, boring bad days doesn’t scar kids—it makes them feel normal. If you only ever talk about how great your life is, they’ll think the fact that they’re uncertain means something is broken in them. You don’t have to dump all your adult stress on them; just a quick, honest line about a bad day goes a long way.
Third, that three tiny things exercise is low-stakes, no homework required. You don’t have to make them keep a gratitude journal or do it every morning. It just pulls them out of the big, abstract doom they’re stuck in and drops them back into the small, concrete stuff that’s actually happening right in front of them. It doesn’t fix student debt or climate anxiety, but it reminds them that even when most things feel pointless, there’s almost always one tiny thing that doesn’t totally suck.
After we finished our list that night, my son didn’t jump up and declare life was beautiful. He just shrugged, grabbed the last slice of pizza, and said “I’m gonna go play Fortnite” and headed upstairs. That was a month ago. Last week, he left a sticky note on my coffee mug before school that just said “Your blueberry donut you split with me yesterday didn’t suck.” Lila still doesn’t talk much in class, but she slips me extra peppermint gum when I’m grading papers after school, and last week she wrote in her reading response that “the way the sun hits the oak tree by the parking lot at 3 p.m. is pretty okay, I guess.”
I still don’t have a definitive answer to the question. Some weeks, I’d say yes, it’s totally worth it. Some weeks, I’d say it’s just okay, barely. But that’s the thing—no one has to have the answer for them. We just have to let them ask it, and meet them there with the truth instead of a script. So far, that’s enough.
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