Jess Hilarious is turning the mess of co-parenting into a book. The 34-year-old comedian, born Jesscia Robin Moore, is releasing her debut, 'Til Death Do We Parent, and says she wanted it to speak to parents, not just mothers.
To do that, she pulled in the voice of her high school sweetheart and ex, Gerome, also called Rome. Jess Hilarious said she "didn’t want to be selfish" and added, "If I want [my book] to appeal to parents, and not just moms, I had to include Rome, too."
The project draws from the years she spent navigating co-parenting problems with Rome, including the kind of small but constant reminders that shape family life. Jess Hilarious said she has to write everything down, even leaving notes to make sure Rome kept Ashton’s coat on in the winter. The cover, she said, shows her writing on a calendar because that is what the two of them go through.
That detail is more than a gimmick. Jess Hilarious said the book is built around taking responsibility for her own role in the relationship’s strain. "He did his dirt and stuff, but I did mine as well," she said, adding, "A lot of times, we as moms try to keep pushing forward as the victim [in relationships], when, in a lot of cases, we too play a part in the toxicity and dysfunction."
The title carries the same point into parenting itself. Jess Hilarious said the phrase reflects her view that raising a child is a lifelong commitment, not something that ends when a child turns 18. She said she often hears Black parents talk as if a son or daughter is out the door at that age, but she disagrees. "That speaks to one of the stigmas I want to kill and why I even wrote the book," she said. "I often hear, especially, you know, us, Black parents say things like, Oh as soon as he turns 18, as soon as she is 18, he is out, but no."
The book also arrives with Jess Hilarious in a different place than when the relationship began. She is now married, says she is independent, has businesses and structure, and is raising a 14-year-old son, Ashton, and a 1-year-old daughter, Marley Sky. Even so, she said family does not stop at adulthood. "There will never be a day that I don’t need him, there will never be a situation where I don’t need my mom," she said, adding that she still calls her mother and father when she needs to and that there will never be a day she does not need her father.
That is why 'Til Death Do We Parent is being framed less as a celebrity memoir than as a pointed answer to a gap in parenting books, especially for Black moms trying to describe co-parenting without pretending the work is finished at 18. Jess Hilarious says the book is for parents who know the job stretches on, through the friction, the reminders and the compromises. What it settles is the question at the center of the title: parenting does not end when a child becomes an adult, and she says it never should.
