Jill Smokler, Scary Mommy blogger, dead at 48

Jill Smokler, founder of the blog Scary Mommy, died Monday at her home in Pikesville, Maryland, after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer in 2024. She was 48.

Smokler, a mother to three children, started Scary Mommy to highlight the realities of motherhood. Her blog, drawing millions of readers, became a safe space for mothers to express themselves freely.

"Jill spent her life telling the truth about motherhood — that it could be wonderful and impossible in the very same breath," her family said in a statement posted to the Scary Mommy blog. "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."

In 2008, the year Smokler started Scary Mommy, she was working as a graphic designer, unaware of how popular the blog would get, according to The New York Times. The name was created not by describing Smokler’s motherhood experience, but by her middle child, Ben, who, she said in a 2014 interview with Kveller, a Jewish culture site, would put the word scary in front of every word he said.

Scary Mommy is what described on its website as being about "unfiltered motherhood." Not only did her site allow women to vent on the hardships of parenting, but it was also a blog providing tips, suggestions and updates on parenting, free from judgment. It was a place Smokler thought was not possible to create, her brother, Matt Epstein, told The Times. After receiving her "first random comment," she soon realized that she wasn’t alone, and that there were other women facing similar obstacles in motherhood.

"If Scary Mommy ever made you feel it was OK to admit motherhood was hard or simply feel like you were part of a community ... that was Jill. She was the blueprint," a Scary Mommy blog post by "Team Scary Mommy" stated.

Born on July 1, 1977, in Boston, Jill Renee Epstein was the eldest of two children of Andrew Epstein and Kathy Lechtner Epstein. After graduating in 1999 from Washington University in St. Louis with a bachelor's degree in graphic design, she created her own graphic design business and used her expertise to help establish Scary Mommy. Smokler and her husband divorced in 2017. She is survived by her brother, her parents and her three children.