Katie Roiphe, The Wall Street Journal Journalist Profile

Articles

I Was Terrible at Money. My Daughter Should Learn From My Mistakes.

1 week ago | wsj.com | Katie Roiphe

Having grown up believing it was crass to talk about finances, I got my own education the hard way. As everyone contemplates the wreckage of their retirement accounts, I figure it is as good a time as any to reflect on my financial problems. I have always been bad at money. While generally competent and highly functional, I am somehow terrified of anything to do with finances. I would basically summarize my approach to all practical money matters as some combination of hope and avoidance.
I Was Terrible at Money. My Daughter Should Learn From My Mistakes.

1 week ago | fnlondon.com | Katie Roiphe

I Was Terrible at Money. My Daughter Should Learn From My Mistakes. Having grown up believing it was crass to talk about finances, I got my own education the hard way. Published May 1, 2025 at 12:01 PM ET As everyone contemplates the wreckage of their retirement accounts, I figure it is as good a time as any to reflect on my financial problems. I have always been bad at money. While generally competent and highly functional, I am somehow terrified of anything to do with finances.
Andrew Cuomo’s Resurrection and the Death of #MeToo

1 month ago | wsj.com | Katie Roiphe

If you had told anyone at the time that in just a few years, Cuomo would be an early front-runner in the mayoral race, they would have laughed at you. It seemed like he had irreparably damaged his reputation, that he would slink off to wherever shamed #MeToo’d men slink off to. At the time, it felt like the men disgraced in the fevered heights of #MeToo would be forever disgraced, that the exiled would be always exiled.
Parents Who Hire Elite Tutors Are Setting Up Their Kids for Failure

2 months ago | wsj.com | Katie Roiphe

At a curriculum night, my son’s English teacher told the gathered parents that tutors should not be writing papers for students. Maybe I am naive, but I was a little shocked. This was a Brooklyn school, not a place with billionaires taking private jets to St. Barts for the weekend. I knew ChatGPT was an issue, which also came up, but this seemed somehow more corrupt and orchestrated.
Parents Who Hire Elite Tutors Are Setting Up Their Kids for Failure

2 months ago | wsj.com | Katie Roiphe

At a curriculum night, my son’s English teacher told the gathered parents that tutors should not be writing papers for students. Maybe I am naive, but I was a little shocked. This was a Brooklyn school, not a place with billionaires taking private jets to St. Barts for the weekend. I knew ChatGPT was an issue, which also came up, but this seemed somehow more corrupt and orchestrated.
The Writer Who Understood the Power of Not Being 'Nice'

Feb 12, 2025 | nytimes.com | Katie Roiphe

The writer Janet Malcolm once joked to her editor Ileene Smith, "People are disappointed when they meet me because I don't look like a dominatrix." An image of Malcolm as brutal had been looming over her for decades.
How to write a great dating profile

Jan 24, 2025 | livemint.com | Katie Roiphe

When people are nervous or self-conscious, as the dating profile writer likely is, they write toward what is expected, toward clichés and platitudes and predictable tropes. “Looking for someone sweet and funny." “Looking for someone sensitive and kind." But if you are trying to distinguish yourself from a sea of people, you don’t want to use the exact words everyone else is using. In dating profiles, as in all writing, generic is bad; specific is good.
Tracking the Phones of Loved Ones Is Problematic. I’ll Do It Anyway.

Dec 26, 2024 | wsj.com | Katie Roiphe

For the first time in human history, the average Joe can track their family and friends’ exact locations at all times. Any phone offers the seductive ability to “find my people,” to conjure them in space, to pinpoint their movements. If you have an appetite for this stuff, there is a stepped-up version of the location app where you can see if someone is driving too fast or when they arrived at school. Parents generally say that they are tracking teenagers for safety reasons.
Why Is Everyone ‘Sober-ish’ All of a Sudden?

Nov 21, 2024 | wsj.com | Katie Roiphe

For this and other more amorphous reasons, I have noticed increasing numbers of people around me are sober-ish. They drink only socially or only two glasses of wine a week or only in restaurants. They are not willing to give up drinking entirely, which feels like too vast and depressing a surrender of life’s pleasures. So they make rules for themselves. Someone I know has a new ritual of drinking a nonalcoholic beer with nuts on her terrace.
Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys: How I’ve Learned to Deal with the Addicts in My Life

Oct 25, 2024 | wsj.com | Katie Roiphe

A friend’s father recently binged on vodka, and a neighbor found him wandering disoriented around his yard and took him to the hospital. My friend, who had been through this before, agonized over exactly what to say to convince him that he needs to stop drinking. While he was in the hospital, she rifled through his house and threw out all of the liquor bottles, including the ones she found hidden in his drawers.