advice on "stolen" bike

[VeloVT]

I think for me this would be a "turn the other cheek" sort of situation. And I'm not some kind of evangelist. I don't go to church, in fact, and don't have any love of organized religion. Let's say I'm agnostic. But I think you are dealing with a lot of people that, potentially at least, have a lot of problems in their lives that may hinder them from behaving even as THEY would ideally like to behave. The young woman, certainly (and who knows if the bike even made it to the foster home?), and what do you know about the foster parents? There are a lot of really wonderful, giving people who take in foster children, but there are people who do it for the stipend too. And probably lots in between... Weigh the grief it will cause you, including the potential friction between your son and his friend (who is probably really benefitting from his friendship and maybe also from your influence and values), and the amount both in terms of money and time (and stress) that following up on it is likely to cost, and it may be that it's better for everyone, including you, just to chalk it up to chaos. If there's some way you can talk to the girl about it WITHOUT alienating her or making her feel like you can't accept her foster family, that would be good too -- teenagers can be pretty impressionable when it comes to discussions about morals and values, if approached the right way (but they can also be turned off pretty easily if they feel like you are preaching or judging them).

I hope you can work this out in a way that doesn't leave you feeling taken. That feeling really sucks. Sometimes knowing you took the higher path can help, though...


Edit: I'm so inconsistent. I just advised CheriNYC to take the people that rear-ended her car (and did $5,000 worth of damage to her bikes) to the cleaners. Sigh... Someday I'll figure out what my philosophy of life is...