Have a Beautiful Weekend.

Hey Sasha. I’m a former foster parent who has been through somewhat similar situations. In terms of immediate things you can do sending food or gift cards for food delivery services is so helpful. Basically anything you traditionally associate with grief and mourning. Flowers. Condolences. And continue checking in in a few weeks when perhaps those in their immediate circle will have started moving on. Tell them you’re thinking of them and the pain they must be feeling and offer to listen if they’d like to talk. No advice. No input. Just a friendly ear to share the tsunami of emotions they’re experiencing. In terms of your visit, in a few weeks have a gentle but open conversation with your brother and see how he and his wife feel. Your toddler very well may be an injection of lighthearted joy that would lift their spirits by the time summer rolls around. I promise however hard that conversation may be it would be preferable to making any assumptions one way or another. You and your little one are still people who mean the world to your family and staying away, while well intended, may just feel like the notion of family falling even further away after this loss.
You’re a good person for thinking this proactively about how to take care of them. Sending you all the love and good luck.

I don’t think you should unlaterally decide what they could handle. I think you could ask them how they feel about it. I generally am of the opinion that it feels worse when people self-edit around a hard situation. They had an adoption fall through, it doesn’t mean that they don’t want to be around kids or be around their own niece/nephew.

Thank you, everyone who responded.

Been through this. Send food or a card, don’t cancel your visit. You can always ask them if it would be too painful, but I was so happy to see family and friends after a few weeks of hiding. I will never forget the friend who dropped off a coffee on my door step, the friend who brought over a lunch picnic and talked with me about her own failed adoption, and a friend who planted a special tree and some flowers for me in my yard so I could have someplace to go to pray for/think about the daughter that wasn’t meant to be. I also won’t forget the friend who drove a few hours from her vacation spot to spend time with me and give me something to look forward to.

lol this made me crack up!

I know, I thought the article was really interesting but the author missed an opportunity for some thoughtful unpacking – it was mostly just based around the novelty of the experience itself, when it could’ve been a lot more than that, like the issues you flag here.

Agreed. Also really did not like the “outsourcing” metaphor, it makes sexual empowerment classist, like an exercise of her class privilege. Interesting to hear about yoni massage and tantric practices, but not this way.

Totally agree with this comment. One additional point- sexual massage businesses are often used for human trafficking and I don’t think they should be glorified.

Hi Julie, “There’s really no excuse to keep doing this in this day/age” is essentially saying, there’s no excuse to be paying journalists for their work in this day and age. I totally get that pay walls are frustrating, and if you’ve read this site much you know the CoJ team almost always posts gift links, but also – journalists deserve to be paid for their work! Not all content can be free, and we’re lucky there’s so much great free content here on CoJ. And I know that subscribing to publications is not in everyone’s budget, it’s certainly not in mine – but that doesn’t mean that those publications shouldn’t charge to access their work. Just food for thought.

“In the nicest way possible” belongs in this comments section. “There’s really no excuse to keep doing this in this day/age” does not.

If you open in incognito or private tab, you are able to read the articles.

+1 Alex

I’m glad others picked this up. “In the nicest possible way” this message was so condescending and full of entitlement. Of course it’s lovely when all the links work freely and without sound as another commenter said above. But in this day and age I think it’s on us as the user to silence our devices when we are doing something that requires quiet and accept that people need to make a living. Honestly. This blog provides endless free content. They then link to some paid stuff and every time they get slammed. The entitlement needs a reality check. Truly, have a think about how you’d better design this business model because I think that even with the links that sometimes are too expensive or from billionaire corporations or paywalled newspapers I can’t come up with a neater or better way to keep COJ running. I trust that they have put a lot of thought into their content and at the end of the day, they’re allowed to disappoint some of us, sometimes.

Um. These links are marked with the publications in parenthesis. Yes, The Atlantic had a paywall. Yes, NY Mag has a paywall. Yes, the New Yorker has a paywall. They all employe amazing journalist who write for a living. They are also physical magazines. In the nicest possible way: If it irks you to subscribe to these magazines, you can check them out at your library. I don’t expect links to clothing to lead to free dresses and tops! I appreciate that this blog is free, but I would t o t a l l y pay to subscribe. Writing is work! Articles and ideas have value! If you are upset every time you click on something behind a paywall, you should unpack that for yourself. Those are feelings that can/should be managed.

Julie, in the nicest way possible, if the articles seem interesting and are repeatedly from the same sites (they are, most are from New York Magazine, the New Yorker, or sometimes, the Atlantic) then maybe consider subscribing to those sites. Paywalls exist because endless free content is not sustainable, (though Cup of Jo works very hard to provide us with high quality content for free! Which is why posts like this or complaining about affiliate links or sponsored content are so frustrating to me) . I completely understand that not everyone has a spare $5/month to subscribe, but if that’s the case, there are ways to read those articles without doing so. And hopefully those subscribe options encourage a few more people to sign up to support the sites so we can all benefit from art, culture, and important investigative work. @Josnna, as you were, please!

I couldn’t read all the links posted. And I had a completely different response. I considered if I should purchase a subscription! Why must everything be free!? Can’t we support writers? Also, why does cup of jo owe you a warning that there’s a pay wall? Aren’t we all grown ups? Sometimes life is disappointing, like not getting to read all the links and we still survive.

My oh my…all this backlash because one reader dared to voice criticism “not nicely.” Why are you all so upset by this? Joanna doesn’t seem to be. Her blog might be free, but rest assured that she’s not working for free.

@Hana, I think you’re missing the point of people’s responses. No one is under the impression that Joanna and co. work for free, the whole point is that they’ve found a sustainable business model that works for them. Their work adds so much value to so many people’s lives, and I, for one, am happy to support them (by not gripping about sponsored content, clicking on affiliate links, sharing posts, etc.) Other writers and publications also employ the best business model for them. Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that journalism is in a precarious state and has been so for decades. Paywall help fund journalism and protect the industry’s integrity. People’s expectation of accessing everything for free is absurd, but more importantly, you get what you pay for.