In the milieu in which I grew up, well, you would never hear the word “milieu:” I didn’t encounter it until my freshman year sociology class in college.
That’s not to say people were stupid, or merely uneducated. In both Brooklyn and New Jersey, the two places where I spent my pre-college years, almost everyone was working- or middle-class. Almost every kid I knew had two parents. If any kid was being raised by only one, it was more than likely the other had died: Divorce and separation were rare; a parent choosing to raise a baby or child was rarer still. To my knowledge, only a handful of kids I grew up with were adopted. Among them was the sister of the closest friend I had in high school. And my friend already had four siblings when his family took in one more.
You probably could guess that in that milieu (!), almost entirely White, conservative (even for its time) and mostly Christian (Catholic and mainstream Protestant) witn an assimilated Jewish community, there were no “out” gays or lesbians; a non-heterosexual parent or teacher was unthinkable. The only trans person most people had heard about was Christine Jorgensen, and then only as a punchline.
At least I knew that LGBTQ people existed, even if I didn’t know who they were. (Much later, I would find out that a few whom I suspected, and some I never would’ve guessed, were indeed not hetero or cis.) I cannot say the same for another group of people who, like LGBTQ people, are often misunderstood and unfairly stigmatized: foster children.
Not only did I not know any foster kids—or, more precisely, know that anyone I knew was one—I didn’t even know what that meant. When, much later, I finally met some whom I knew to be foster kids, I started to understand why some teachers, counselors and other professionals said they were “difficult” to work with or even “hopeless:” Many have endured traumatic experiences no one, much less a child, should bear. And, one thing anyone who has taught, at any level, can tell you is that, all other things being equal, people-whatever their age—are easier to teach and learn more and better when their lives are stable and structured.
That so many come from dysfunctional or abusive environments means that foster kids often don’t have the milestones and other experiences other kids, even adopted ones, typically enjoy. One such experience was a kind of rite of passage for so many kids, including me: getting their first bicycle. So many foster kids not only don’t get a first, many never get a bike at all.
Some employees of an Utah Volkswagen dealership understand what I’ve just described. Ken Garff Volkswagen in Orem has a “We’re ‘Hear’ For You” program in which employees decide how they want to give back to the community. The program has worked with Utah Foster Care in other ways, but this time employees decided to buy, and in some cases assemble, 100 bikes. They even attached name tags to the bikes so the gift felt more personal.
Those employees did all of that on their own time. That tells me that they understand something I did: the thrill of getting that first bike and something I never could have: what it’s like to be a foster kids. And I suspect that at least one of those employees is a cyclist and understands the pleasure cycling can give us, from childhood to midlife and beyond.
