Why Your Teen Might Ask ‘Do People Really Find Life Worth Living?’ And What To Do Next
I was scraping congealed marinara off a dinner plate last month, the local alternative station humming in the background, when my 16-year-old Javi pushed himself off the fridge where he’d been leaning scrolling TikTok and asked, deadpan, “Do people really find life worth living?” I almost dropped the plate into the sink. It’s not the question you expect between loading the dishwasher and sorting laundry for the next school week.
He explained he’d spent the afternoon watching videos of young people talking about how they work 40 hours a week at jobs they hate just to pay rent, that all the adults they know are one bad medical bill away from broke, that no one actually enjoys most of their days—they’re just faking it to keep the cycle going. He said he’d listened to his dad and me complain about car repairs and property taxes and work emails at 10 p.m., he’d heard his teachers talk about grading papers over the weekend, and he couldn’t see the point. If this is what we’re all working toward, why bother?
I’ve worked part-time as an 11th grade teacher for eight years, so I hear this question a couple times a semester, usually after units on mental health or future planning. I’ve learned the worst thing you can do is jump in with a cheery “of course it is!” That just makes the kid shut down—they already expect you to feed them the same fake line everyone else does. So I wiped my hands on my faded jeans, pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, and said, “That’s such a good question. What made you think of it today?” I didn’t plan anything else. I just waited.
He talked for 20 minutes straight, about how all the adults online rant about hustle culture then turn around and complain they don’t have time to do anything they actually like, about how college tuition is so expensive he’s scared he’ll be in debt forever, about how it feels like everyone’s lying about being happy. I didn’t interrupt. I didn’t offer fixes. I just nodded every once in a while.
When he was done, I didn’t give him a big speech. I just told him the truth about my week. I told him I spent three and a half hours on hold with my health insurance arguing over a $48 copay I shouldn’t have had to pay. I told him I stepped in dog vomit at 6 a.m. the previous Tuesday, before I’d even had my first sip of coffee. I told him I got a migraine last weekend that kept me in bed for 12 hours, and I missed the neighborhood barbecue we’d been planning for months. Then I told him that same week, I stopped on my walk to get the mail and watched three sparrows fight over an abandoned french fry on the sidewalk, and I laughed so hard I snort-laughed, and that 30 seconds felt better than any fancy vacation I’ve ever been on. I told him my best friend sent me a blurry photo of a raccoon that broke into her trash can, and I thought about that photo three times that day when I was stuck in boring department meetings.
A lot of parents and teachers worry that if we admit how much of life is just boring, annoying, draining work, we’ll give kids the wrong idea. But the problem is we’ve been selling them this lie that life is one big, rewarding adventure if you just do everything right. That’s not how it works. Most days are 90% small, annoying stuff, and 10% tiny, good stuff that you almost miss if you’re only looking for something big.
In my classroom, I started doing a two-minute check-in every Friday that I call “one small thing.” No one has to share a big win or a life goal. They just have to name one tiny thing that didn’t suck that week. Last week one kid said “my fries were extra salty at lunch” and another said “my dog fell asleep on my foot while I was doing homework” and that’s it. Parents can do this at dinner, no extra work, just add it to the rotation of “how was school” questions. It trains all of us to notice the small bits that make life worth showing up for, instead of waiting for some big grand payoff that never comes.
The first thing I tell other parents who say their kid asked this question is to first pause and check if they’re talking about hurting themselves. If they are, you reach out to a professional right away, that’s non-negotiable. But nine times out of 10, this question isn’t a crisis. It’s a developmental step. Teens are learning to see past the fake highlight reels we all post online, and they’re calling bullshit on the lie we tell them that happiness is a destination you reach after you get the degree, the house, the job. They just need someone to be honest with them, not reassure them that everything is perfect.
After our talk that night, Javi didn’t have some big epiphany. He just nodded, grabbed an orange soda from the fridge, and went back to his room to play Valorant with his friends. I didn’t expect him to. Last week, though, he sent me a text when he was waiting for the bus after school. It was a blurry photo of a mallard duck standing in the school parking lot, eating an orange Cheeto someone dropped. The text just said, “This guy seems to think life is worth it.” I texted back, “Me too, after seeing that.” We haven’t talked about it again. Some days I know he still thinks it’s all kind of pointless. Some days I do too. But we’re both still here, still stopping to look at dumb ducks eating Cheetos, and that’s enough for now.
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