What To Do When Your Teen Asks “Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?”
I was scraping leftover spaghetti into a tupperware last Tuesday when my 16-year-old son, leaning against the kitchen counter scrolling TikTok, asked it out of nowhere: “Do people really find life worth living?” The dog was at my feet begging for bread crusts, there was a dried coffee ring on the placemat I’d been meaning to wipe up for three days, and my first thought was to drop the spaghetti ladle and call the pediatrician. I’d seen the hotlines, the warning signs—any mention of life not being worth it means immediate crisis, right?
I almost blurted out “Of course it is! Just look at how much you have going for you” but I stopped. Last year I’d sat through a parent workshop at the high school where the counselor said that seven out of 10 teens she talks to ask this question at some point lately, and it’s not always a sign they’re in immediate danger. Sometimes it’s just the first time they’ve stopped buying the story we sell them: work hard, graduate, get a job, be happy. So I pulled out a chair and sat down, instead of rushing to fix the problem. “What’s making you ask that?” I said.
He turned his phone around to show me a thread of 20 and 30-somethings talking about how they peaked at 17, how they just work 40 hours a week to pay rent and eat and that’s it, how no one ever tells you that most of the time life is just boring and stressful. “All of them say they wouldn’t choose to do it again if they had the chance,” he said. “What’s the point of me stressing about college apps and AP exams if I’m just gonna end up miserable 10 years from now?”
I paused, then asked the first thing the counselor said to always ask first, straight out: “Are you feeling like life isn’t worth it for you right now? Do you want to hurt yourself?” He made a face like I’d asked if he still believed in Santa. “No, I’m fine. I just think everyone’s lying about it. No one says the bad parts out loud.” That was a relief, but it didn’t answer the question he’d put on the table.
For years I taught 8th grade, and I saw this same question pop up all the time, usually after a celebrity death, a string of bad news, or even just after midterms when everyone’s burnt out. Parents would email me panicking, asking what was wrong with their kid. What I learned back then, and what I’ve had to remind myself as a parent, is that this question is usually a developmental step, not a red flag. Kids grow up hearing us tell them that if they do everything right, they’ll be happy. When they start seeing that’s not how it works for most people, they’re gonna ask the obvious next question.
The worst thing we can do in that moment is shut them down with forced positivity. I’ve seen so many parents say “Of course it’s worth it! Think of your friends, your family, your sports team” which just makes the kid feel like they can’t say what they actually think, because their question is wrong. Instead, the first concrete shift you can make is to be honest about the parts of life that suck. I told him that last month, when the water heater broke and we had to drop $1,400 we’d saved for our summer trip to fix it, I spent a whole evening on the couch thinking “This is just it, isn’t it? One broken thing after another, just scrambling to keep up.” He blinked, because I’d never said that out loud to him before. “You actually think that?” he said. “I thought adults never felt like that.”
Then, instead of listing big achievements or future milestones, I told him the small stuff that makes the bad days worth getting through, for me anyway. I told him I don’t care about promotions or new cars or any of that stuff we see advertised as the good life. What makes me glad to be here most days is stopping at the gas station for a cold iced coffee on my way to work when the sun’s just coming up, and watching the squirrels chase each other up the oak tree in our front yard, and when he and his sister stay up late playing video games and I can hear them laughing from the living room, and when we get takeout on Friday nights and no one has to do the dishes right away. It’s not big. It’s just small, boring stuff that adds up.
We didn’t talk about it for another hour after that. We finished clearing the dishes, he went back to his room to hang out with his friends online. That’s the other thing no one tells you: you don’t have to have a three-hour deep dive right that second. If you answer the question honestly and leave the door open, that’s enough.
A week later, I was making coffee yesterday morning and he came down to make scrambled eggs, and he said out of the blue, “That thing we talked about. I still don’t get the big point of everything. But I get the coffee thing. That iced coffee from the place by the park is pretty good.” Then he grabbed his backpack and headed out to meet his friend for a hike before school.
I don’t have a perfect answer for him. Some days I still wonder the same thing. I don’t think this is a question you answer once and check off the list. Sometimes when he’s had a bad week, he’ll bring it up again, and I just listen, and say I still wonder too sometimes. I don’t think we need to fix it for them. We just need to stop lying, tell them it’s okay to ask, and let them know that for most of us, life isn’t worth living every single minute. It’s just worth it enough, most days, in the small bits. That’s enough, I think. For now, anyway.
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