What To Do When Your Teen Asks: Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?
The pasta bowls are stacked on the counter, rain is streaking the kitchen window, and I’m twisting a detergent pod into the dishwasher when 16-year-old Javi looks up from his phone and asks it, plain as asking if we have any more chocolate milk: “Do people really find life worth living?”
I freeze for a second, the pod still in my hand. A year ago, I would’ve spun around immediately, heart racing, and launched into a messy speech about how of course it is, how he has so much to live for, how this is just a bad patch. A year ago, that would’ve made him shove his phone in his pocket, mumble “never mind” and trudge up to his room, and I wouldn’t have heard him talk about it again for three months.
That was back when he tore his meniscus running cross country, his best friend moved across the country for his dad’s job, and he spent two months barely saying two words at dinner. I spent that whole period trying to cheer him up — booking weekend trips, buying him the new gaming console he’d wanted, reminding him how much people loved him. All it did was make him pull further away. I later realized he wasn’t asking for a pep talk back then. He was asking if what he was feeling was normal: that a lot of life feels like just going through the motions, and no one talks about that out loud.
So this time, I set the detergent pod down on the counter, sit on the floor next to our golden retriever who’s chewing a hole in an old sock, and say, “That’s such a good question. What made you think of that?”
He pushes off the counter and sits on the other side of the dog, scrolling back to a Reddit thread he’d been reading. A bunch of people in their 20s and 30s were commenting that they don’t actually think life is all that great. They just get up every day because they have to pay rent, or because their dog would miss them, or because it’s too much hassle to change anything. Javi says, “Everyone online posts all this cool stuff about their jobs and their trips, but behind the scenes, no one actually thinks it’s worth it? Are we all just faking it?”
I think about the last time I complained to my sister about how I spend 40 hours a week answering emails I don’t care about, just to pay for a house that always needs a new repair, and how I said most days feel like treading water. I think about how Javi’s math teacher said at back-to-school night that she only works nine months a year so she can spend three months camping in the Rockies, and that’s the whole point of her job. I think about how my uncle, after his divorce, said he only gets up in the morning to make sure his tomato plants get watered. None of these people are miserable. None of them are living some grand, purpose-driven life either.
I tell Javi that. I say, “Some days I don’t. Last week, after the dryer broke and I spilled coffee all over my laptop before a big meeting and I forgot to pack your lunch, I sat in the parking lot of the grocery store thinking, ‘Is this really it?’ Most days, though, it’s not that I’m over here jumping out of bed ecstatic that life is so amazing. I just have a bunch of small things I stick around for. I like that you burn toast every Saturday morning and blame the toaster even though we all know you put it on too high. I like that this dog curls up on my feet when I work. I like that the cherry tree out front blooms every April, and it only lasts two weeks, but it’s the best two weeks of the year.”
I volunteer in Javi’s 10th grade advisory once a month, and I’ve heard this question from at least five other kids this semester. What I’ve learned is that most of the time, this isn’t a cry for emergency mental health help (obviously, if your kid is talking about hurting themselves, you get that help immediately). Usually, it’s just teens working through a developmental shift: they grew up hearing that life is this big, exciting story where you get your dream job and your happy family and everything feels meaningful all the time. Then they start watching adults closely, and they notice the gap between the story and the real thing, and they’re confused.
The worst thing we can do is shut that question down with fake positivity. The best thing we can do is three small, concrete things that work for me and for the other advisory teachers I talk to. First, pause and ask them to talk more instead of jumping to answer. The line “That’s such a good question, what made you think of that?” works every time, no fancy wording needed. It gives them space to share what they’re really seeing, instead of shutting down when you dismiss their observation. Second, be honest about your own mixed feelings, don’t lie and say every day is great. Kids see right through that performative happiness, and it just makes them feel like their own doubts are wrong. Third, if they want to keep talking, invite them to name the small things, not the big things. In advisory, we did this a few weeks ago: everyone said one tiny thing they show up for, no pressure to say something impressive. One kid said the vending machine by the gym always has his favorite sour candy. Another said his little sister waits for him by the bus stop to show him the rocks she collected. No one said anything grand, and that was the point.
After we talked that night, Javi scratched the dog behind the ears, grabbed his hoodie, and said his friend was outside to walk the dog around the block. He paused at the door, turned back, and said “Yeah, the cherry tree is pretty good.” Then he left.
We haven’t had a big follow-up conversation. Some days he’s still cynical, cracks jokes about how we’re all just here to pay bills and die. Some days he texts me from school to say they had his favorite chocolate chip cookies in the cafeteria, and I can almost hear him smiling through the screen. I don’t have the perfect answer for him, and I don’t think we’ll ever get one that fits every day. That’s okay, I think. That’s just how life works.
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