Jill Smokler, a Swampscott High School graduate and the founder of parenting website Scary Mommy, has died after fighting glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, for two years.

“She was always extremely creative. She just had a brilliantly creative mind, always moving on to the next project,” Yana Frankel, who first met Smokler as a child while the two attended what is now Epstein Hillel School in Marblehead, told the Swampscott Tides.

Scary Mommy announced on its website on Monday that Smokler died at 48. Smokler founded the site in March 2008, never imagining that “this little corner of the internet would become a home for millions of mothers.”

“When Jill started Scary Mommy, she was a stay-at-home mom with three kids, using the space to write about motherhood in a way no one else was at the time: honestly,” the site reads. “Back when ‘mommy blogs’ were just a novelty, she shared both the joys and the pitfalls of parenting. She said the things we weren’t supposed to say out loud, and because she said them first, millions of women finally felt allowed to say them too.”

A graduate of Washington University who later lived in the Baltimore area, Smokler launched Scary Mommy while raising three children under the age of 4 as a stay-at-home mother.

Scary Mommy has since grown into a community for moms. Scary Mommy has since grown into a digital community for mothers, featuring everything from parenting advice and celebrity interviews to seasonal activities and its popular “mom confessions.”

“Before Jill, too many of us mothered in a vacuum: alone, unsure and more than a little pissed off,” the website wrote. “She built a place where that no longer had to be true. Here, laughter, self-deprecation and unwavering truth-telling are the norm. And that’s because of Jill’s vision for a place where moms could feel validated and seen.”

For Frankel, she would reconnect with Smokler each July when she returned to Swampscott to visit her father.

“It was amazing. We both have three kids. She was always like a year ahead of me, so I looked up to her for advice,” Frankel told the Swampscott Tides. “And then she started Scary Mommy, which really was just for family and friends to follow her journey. I don’t know how but the whole thing blew up with millions of followers and everyone hanging on to her every word. It was absolutely amazing to see the impact on people she had never met.”

Frankel said Smokler expanded the site’s impact through philanthropic efforts, including a Thanksgiving campaign that collected grocery store gift cards for families struggling to afford a holiday meal.

Beyond her work with Scary Mommy, Smokler was also a New York Times bestselling author. She wrote Confessions of a Scary Mommy in 2012 and Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) in 2013.

Frankel joked that in high school Smokler “was not recognized as an amazing writer that she turned out to be.”

“She was a good English student but not like she turned out to be,” Frankel told the Swampscott Tides. “She hated math.”

Smokler did serve as editor of the Swampscott High School yearbook during her senior year alongside Frankel.

“It was all her work,” Frankel said. “She was so smart and witty and she had such an infectious laugh. She was really honest. She would just share things exactly how they are, which I don’t think most people do, which is part of what made her just so special.”

Smokler also made appearances on programs like TODAY and Good Morning America.

“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,” Smokler’s family shared in a statement. “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 2024, Smokler shared her glioblastoma diagnosis on Instagram. After the diagnosis, she told Today.com that “all I want to do is spend time with my kids, ideally on a beach because that’s my happy place.”

Her family requested that memorial donations be made to The Brain Tumor Network in lieu of flowers.

“Thank you, Jill, for everything,” Scary Mommy wrote. “May you rest in peace.”