Jill Smokler, 48, Swampscott native and founder of Scary Mommy

Jill Renee Smokler, the New York Times bestselling author and entrepreneur who founded Scary Mommy and built one of the largest and most honest communities for mothers in the world, died on June 22nd, 2026, at her home in Baltimore after a more than two-year fight with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. She was 48.

She built her life’s work on a single, radical idea: that you could love your children more than anything in the world and still say, out loud, that the job is really f—ing hard. Eighteen years ago, there was almost nowhere a mother could admit this without judgment. So Jill made the place.

Born July 1, 1977, in Boston and raised in Swampscott, Massachusetts, Jill graduated from Swampscott High School before earning her degree from Washington University in St. Louis. A former graphic designer, she started a blog in 2008 to write about the parts of motherhood that no one else would. She named it Scary Mommy after her son Ben, who, while watching a children’s movie, declared everything in sight “scary” — his mother included. Her first post went up on March 21, 2008, under a title that turned out to be prophetic: “Here goes. Day One.”

What began as one woman writing in her pajamas became a movement. Millions of readers found their way to Scary Mommy because it told the truth — funny, raw, sharp, self-deprecating, occasionally inappropriate, and always real — at a moment when the internet was full of people performing a flawless version of motherhood that no one actually lived.

She wrote about the parts of motherhood that weren’t supposed to be said aloud: the mess, the boredom, the guilt, the flashes of rage, and the love so big it somehow made it all worthwhile. Scary Mommy wasn’t just a website. It was permission: to laugh, to admit it was hard, to tell the truth, and to be a great mother without pretending to enjoy every single second of it.

That permission became the foundation of a major digital media brand. Long before “influencer” became a job title, Jill had built the kind of trust with her audience that brands were still trying to understand. She grew Scary Mommy from a personal blog into a company with millions of readers. She was a New York Times bestselling author, beginning with Confessions of a Scary Mommy in 2012 and Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) in 2013. Her work and story were featured across national television, digital media, and print, and Scary Mommy earned multiple Webby Awards.

In 2013, she founded Scary Mommy Nation, a nonprofit that funded Thanksgiving dinners for families who could not afford them — because a community built on honesty, she believed, ought to take care of its own. She stepped away from Scary Mommy in 2018.

Those who knew Jill say she lived as fully and unapologetically herself as anyone they had ever known: funny, restless, brilliant, ridiculous, generous, and allergic to pretending.

“She taught me that being authentic mattered more than being right,” said her brother, Matt Epstein.

Asked once what quality she would change about herself, Jill answered: “The inability to just be content. I wish I had the ability to take a deep breath and enjoy the ride, or even enjoy the quiet, instead of always waiting for the next stage.”

Her family finds some comfort in believing she can finally take that breath and let herself feel proud of everything she built.

She is survived by her three children, who were, by her own account, the greatest thing she ever produced: Lily, a recent graduate of Boston University; Ben, a student at the University of Pittsburgh; and Evan, who begins at Wesleyan University this fall. She is also survived by her mother, Kathy Epstein, of Baltimore; her father, Drew Epstein, and his longtime partner, Sandy Jacobs, of Swampscott, Massachusetts; her brother, Matt Epstein, his wife, Bari, and their children, Maxwell and Gabriel, of South Orange, New Jersey; and her best friend, Julie Bender, of Olney, Maryland.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Jill’s memory to The Brain Tumor Network, which was an invaluable resource to Jill and her family.

A celebration of Jill’s life will be announced.

This local obituary is published courtesy of Jill Smokler’s family. Want a loved one’s obituary featured on Boston.com? Submit your obituary here, or email it to [email protected].