Jill Smokler, Jewish Founder of ‘Scary Mommy,’ Dies at 48

You can’t talk about the world-changing era of mommy blogs without talking about Scary Mommy.

Jill Smokler, a stay-at-home mom of three from Baltimore, started the iconic blog in 2008, almost two decades ago. She got the name from her toddler son Ben, who, after watching a particularly frightening (to him) children’s movie, started calling everything scary, including his own mom. Smokler found the domain name available, hit the ground running and changed the media world forever with her new chutzpah-filled parenting website.

The writer and entrepreneur passed away this Monday, June 22, two years after being diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma, at age 48.

Through Scary Mommy, Smokler helped make the messy, vulnerable and pee-in-your-pants (so much easier postpartum) funny parts about parenting the new normal. With three kids under the age of 4, she helped make other moms feel seen and normalized openly complaining when parenting got hard, with many of her readers sharing anonymous kvetches with Smokler to be shared on the site.

Her three humorous books all about parenting made her a New York Times bestselling author, and she was one of the first mommy bloggers to sell her blog to a big media company — Scary Mommy became part of Some Spiders Studios in 2015, and Smokler stepped down from the company in 2018. In 2021, it became part of Bustle Media Group.

Her brother, Matt Epstein, shared the following statement with “Today” on her passing:

“Jill spent her life telling the truth about motherhood — that it could be wonderful and impossible in the very same breath — and in doing so, she gave millions of women permission to stop pretending and feel a little less alone. She was funny, fearless, generous, and entirely herself. More than anything she built, Jill was proudest of her three children, Lily, Ben, and Evan. We are heartbroken to lose her, and endlessly proud of the mark she left on the world.”

Smokler’s three children, whom she sent to Jewish day school (Smokler herself was a graduate of the Cohen Hillel Academy, now known as Epstein Hillel School), are now adults. After her diagnosis, Smokler said, “All I want to do is spend time with my kids, ideally on a beach because that’s my happy place. It’s so ridiculously bittersweet — I am trying to focus on the sweet part.”

“I am Jewish by birth, but I have never been religious. I pretty much took my bat mitzvah haul and ran, and that was the end of it. It’s not something I’m proud of,” Smokler shared with her signature sense of humor on her podcast “She’s Got Issues” back in 2023, when interviewing Rabbi Dana Saroken of Baltimore’s Temple Beth El. Being Jewish was still a big part of her identity, especially after October 7, when she shared posts about the attack, the rise of antisemitism, her solidarity with the families of hostages like Hersh Goldberg-Polin and her heartbreak at the killing of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas.

Back in 2014, Kveller asked Smokler about her relationship to kvelling: “Of course I’m a kveller – what Jewish mother isn’t?!” she told us. “Growing up, though, my parents called me ‘Kvetch-a-minute,’ a nickname which I really didn’t appreciate until I had children of my own complaining about something new every three seconds. Nowadays, I do find myself more of a kveller than a kvetcher. Thank goodness.”

With her lovely mix of kvelling, kvetching and humor, Smokler helped pave the ground for sites like Kveller and for so many parenting bloggers, many of whom took to social media this Monday to pay tribute to her.

“It was Jill who pioneered a different side of the mom blogosphere. She was an inspiration and comfort to so many,” Jewish blogger Ilana Wiles, also known as Mommy Shorts, wrote on Instagram.

“Jill gave us so much. She paved the way for so many to be honest about parenting. She was one of a kind,” wrote Tara Clark of Modern Mom Probs.

We are so grateful for her legacy of wit and frankness. May her memory be a blessing.