Why Your Teen Might Ask ‘Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?’ And What To Do Next
I was scrubbing a dried spaghetti stain off our kitchen table last month when my 16-year-old Javi leaned against the doorframe and asked, “Do people really find life worth living?” His TikTok was still playing a muted influencer rant from his hoodie pocket, the dog was curled at my feet snoring, and rain streaked the kitchen window so bad I could barely see the mailbox across the street. I’d just reminded him three times to take the trash out, and I was already looking forward to collapsing on the couch with a glass of wine after his little sister went to bed. I wasn’t prepared for an existential question in between loading the dishwasher and packing lunches for the next day.
I almost blurted the first thing that popped into my head, the same line my mom gave me when I asked the same question at 15: “Of course it is, what a silly thing to ask.” But I stopped, because I remembered how that made me feel—like my question was wrong, like I was broken for seeing what I saw: all the tired adults complaining about work, all the bad news that never stops, all the grinding that no one talks about until you’re actually in it.
Javi elaborated, picking at a loose thread on his hoodie: He’d binged a climate documentary the night before, then spent an hour scrolling a Reddit thread full of 30-year-olds talking about how they work 40 hours a week just to pay rent and never get to do anything fun. He said no one he sees online actually looks happy. Everyone’s just pretending.
I sat down on the nearest chair, my sock still damp from stepping in the dog’s spilled water bowl earlier, and said, “Honestly? Some days I don’t.” He blinked, like he didn’t expect that. I told him about the previous Tuesday: car battery died at 7 a.m. right before school drop-off, I forgot to buy my favorite coffee creamer so my coffee tasted like burnt dishwater, my boss sent a last-minute project that had me working through lunch, and by 3 p.m. I was sitting in the grocery store parking lot just staring at the steering wheel thinking, “What’s the point of all this running around?”
As a high school teacher, I get this question all the time. I’ve had juniors write it on exit tickets after class, I’ve had it come up during check-ins with kids who seem fine on paper but are quietly burnt out. A lot of adults panic when a kid asks this. They assume it means the kid is suicidal, or that they’re depressed and need immediate intervention. And don’t get me wrong—if your kid is talking about hurting themselves or says they don’t want to be here anymore, you get help right away. But most of the time, this question isn’t a cry for emergency help. It’s a kid testing what you really think, after spending years hearing you repeat polished lies about how great life is if you just work hard enough.
The first small change I recommend to other parents and teachers is to just not shut the question down. The phrase that works way better than the generic “Of course it is! You have so much to live for” is “That’s such a good question. I’ve wondered that too.” It doesn’t commit you to a big speech, it doesn’t dismiss how they feel, and it opens the door to keep talking instead of shutting it.
Next, don’t give them the big, generic answer about achieving your dreams or how a perfect family makes it all worth it. Kids see through that. They know you stress about money, they know you snap at the kids after a bad day, they know you leave work exhausted some nights. Instead, give them the small stuff. The tiny, boring moments that actually add up to life feeling worth living, most days. That’s what I did with Javi. I told him I look forward to the two minutes every morning when I wait for my coffee to brew and the sun comes through the kitchen window just right. I told him I love that he leaves his favorite citrus-scented hoodie draped over the couch, and I can smell it when I walk past, and that makes me happy. I told him last week I found an old pack of gum in my winter coat that I forgot about, and that five minutes of chewing mint gum in the car made that whole bad day feel a little better.
After that conversation, we went to the dollar store that weekend and got a big glass jar and a pack of tiny note cards. We put it on the kitchen counter, and made one rule: you can only put small moments in there, no big stuff like “I got an A on a test” or “we went on vacation.” Every night before bed, anyone can add a note if they had a moment that made life feel worth it that day. It’s low effort, no one has to do it if they don’t want to. Most days Javi doesn’t add anything, but once a week or so he’ll crumple up a little note and toss it in.
The thing is, kids are growing up with constant access to every bad thing that happens in the world, and every adult’s unfiltered rant about how terrible their life is. They don’t get to see the small, boring, good stuff that happens between the rants and the bad news. That’s the part we have to show them, not tell them. It’s not that life is always worth living, every single day. Some days it sucks. Some days it’s just grinding. But most days, there’s at least one tiny thing that makes it okay, and if you start looking for them, you start noticing them more.
Last week, Javi came home after failing a math test and breaking up with his girlfriend, and he asked the question again, quieter this time, while we were standing in line for ice cream. I didn’t give him a speech. I just said “Yeah, I get that. Today sucks, huh?” He nodded. We got our ice cream, went home, and that night he dropped a note in the jar that said “The mint chocolate chip was really cold and good.” We don’t have the big answer. Some days he still feels like life isn’t worth it, some days I do too. The jar isn’t a fix-all. It doesn’t stop the bad news, or the bad tests, or the hard days. But it’s something. Right now, that’s enough.
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