R.I.P. Romper??

You can't consolidate parenting

I’m writing from a “wellness retreat” in Mexico (it sounds like rehab, but it’s not, at least for me), where I cried into my green juice this morning at the news that Romper, the parenting website I have written for for almost four years now, is being gutted. Like all things media-downsizing, there’s a lot of euphemistic lingo and lot of can-kicking — in it’s most basic form Romper still exists, but the content has been whittled down to next to nothing (my anti-parenting-advice parenting-advice column, The Good Enough Parent, which I’ve published with them for over a year, is as good as gone).

Romper, and my editor there, the tremendous Meaghan O’Connell, made me a writer. I sent Meaghan a draft of a story in 2021, having barely published freelance and having just started a lil’ ol’ blog here after 15 years in education and things, magically, took off from there. They let me write about Women Talking and basketball and ableism and dumpy owls and my dad’s messy car and communal living. They paid me to write an advice column where the conceit was that I didn’t really want to advise anyone. They let me end almost every piece with some version of “who the fuck knows???” or rather, fudge (the F word was one thing I could never get by them). They let me interview brilliant, thoughtful, nuanced parent-writers like

Garrett Bucks

and

Ruth Whippman

and

Minna Dubin

. And they took a chance on so many writers, like the great Margaret Jones.

i was so young

Meaghan made me a much, much shrewder writer (I still have a ways to go), and even a better editor, through her example. She inserted gentle emojis while killing my darlings and then, when she decided to keep one, made me feel like a fudging (that’s for you, Liz!) superstar.

And—I’m sorry, this wellness retreat has made me so self-involved—the other writers I discovered through Romper!!! The morning-time meanderings of

Angela Garbes

and

Evie Ebert

’s technicolor good stuff and Samantha Darby’s inflatable chicken and Rebecca Woolf’s Sex and the Single Mom and the gorgeous words of Taylor Harris and Krys Malcolm Belc and Hannah Matthews and so so so many more. Because of Romper, I met my podcast wife, Miranda Rake, and made so many connections that mattered in my heart and also my fledgeling career.

What, exactly, are we mourning? A place for stories about parenting. Not just tips, or optimizations, or products to buy and experts to follow (but also that, sometimes we want that!). Romper is/was the most consistent publisher of complicated, long-form parenting essays — writing that respected parents both as subjects and consumers.

We asked, what kind of parenting content matters? And Romper said, over and over again, all of it! They wanted what was scary and fuzzy and overwhelming and hilarious and life-changing and mundane and uncomfortable because that’s what it’s like. That’s what parenting is. They let us write about it how it is — they didn’t make us turn into a one-liner or make it relevant to current events (though often it was) or treat it as unserious or ask, as other publishers often ask “is this relatable???” because they knew it was. They knew all of this shit was relevant, cause it’s fucking (sorry) life.

I will miss having a place that will trust me to flesh out a half-baked idea, that actually cares about what parents are experiencing and what they need to hear from one another, that constantly publishes complex takes on what, like most topics, is a subject that is getting increasingly over-simplified.

RIP Romper, and all of the truly fabulous people who made it happen, and made it good, for so long. May we not let the nuance go down with it.