What To Do When Your Teen Asks: Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?
I was scraping garlic bread crumbs into the trash after dinner last month when my 16-year-old son, slouched back in his chair staring at a crumpled college admissions worksheet, asked it plain: “Do people really find life worth living?” The TV was playing an old sitcom rerun in the background, the dog was chewing on a shoe by the door, and for a second I just stood there holding a dirty spatula, my brain racing to pull out the right “correct” answer. I almost blurted “Of course they do! How could you even ask that?” before I stopped. He’d had a rough six weeks: the summer research program he’d spent a year applying to rejected him, his best friend since third grade moved to Oregon, and he’d picked up extra shifts at the grocery store just to pay for a new set of tires that got a flat two days after he bought them. This wasn’t a random outburst. It was what he’d been turning over in his head for weeks.
I leaned against the counter instead of jumping to fix the question. I said, “That’s such a good question. What made you think of it today?” He said he’d been on TikTok the night before, watching a college student talk about how everyone just pretends life is good. Most people are just going through the motions, working jobs they hate, paying bills, waiting to die, and no one talks about how much of it is just boring or hard. He said he’d been thinking about it all day: all we do is homework, tests, applications, shifts, what’s the actual point of any of it?
I’ve been a high school substitute teacher for four years, so I’ve heard this question half a dozen times in the last year alone. When I first started hearing it, I’d do the thing all of us are told to do: I’d list all the great things coming, how it gets better after high school, how once you get a job you like or a house or a family it all makes sense. But I noticed no one ever looked relieved after that. They just nodded and changed the subject, because when you’re 16 or 17, “it gets better in 10 years” doesn’t feel like an answer. It feels like you’re saying their current bad feelings don’t matter.
That day, I didn’t do that. I sat down across from him at the table and told him the truth. I said, “Some days I don’t. Like last Tuesday, when I spent three hours on hold with the health insurance company, then the dog threw up on the clean laundry right after I folded it? I stood in the middle of the living room thinking, this is just stupid. Why are we even doing all this?” He blinked, like he wasn’t expecting me to say that. I went on: “Other days, it feels totally worth it. Like last Saturday, when we stopped for iced coffee on the way to the mechanic and you made that joke about the guy with the three Chihuahuas in the parking lot? I laughed so hard I snort-spat coffee all over my shirt. That day felt 100% worth it, just for that.”
The thing most parents and teachers get wrong here is that we think we have to give a solid yes. We think if we admit that sometimes life feels pointless, we’re giving our kids permission to give up. But what I’ve found is that kids already know most of life is boring, hard, or unremarkable. They see us stressed about bills, tired after work, annoyed with traffic. They just think they’re the only ones who notice, that everyone else feels constant joy and purpose. Being honest about your own bad days normalizes the question, instead of making it feel like a shameful secret they have to keep.
After that conversation, we started a tiny, low-effort habit that’s stuck. Every night, after we finish cleaning up dinner, we say one thing from the day that didn’t suck. It doesn’t have to be amazing or profound. It can be “the fries at work were extra crispy” or “my favorite song came on the radio on the way to school” or “the cat curled up on my lap while I did homework.” It’s not a gratitude journal, it’s not a big self-care exercise. It takes 10 seconds. What it does is remind both of us that worth doesn’t have to be big. You don’t need a grand purpose or a life-changing achievement for life to be worth living. Most of the time, it’s just the sum of a million tiny, not-terrible moments.
A couple weeks ago, a 10th grader asked me the same question during free period. I did the same thing: I didn’t give her the “it gets better” speech. I told her I have days where I don’t think it’s worth it, and days where I do. She told me she was sick of everyone saying high school is the best years of your life, when for her it’s just a lot of tests and drama and feeling like no one gets it. I told her that if high school is the best it gets, that’s a pretty bad deal, and I agreed with her that it’s okay to not think these are the best years of your life. After that, she brought me a cookie she baked in home ec the next day. We never talked about it again, but I think that was enough.
My son still asks the question sometimes. Last week he asked it again right after he failed his driver’s test for the second time. I didn’t give him a big speech. I just said “Today totally sucked, I get why you’d ask that. Wanna get your favorite mint chocolate chip after I pick you up from work?” He said yeah. We ate ice cream in the car parked outside the park, and he talked about how stupid the driving examiner was, and by the time we finished, he didn’t need an answer anymore. I don’t have a universal yes to give him. I don’t think anyone does. Some days are just hard, and some days are good, and most days are a mix. All I can do is let him ask the question, be honest about my own, and point out the tiny good bits when we both forget they’re there. That’s enough, for now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What To Do When Your Teen Asks: Do People Really Find Life Worth Living