Are our kids as safe as Beijing houses?

Living in Beijing is like having access to a safe house. I don’t think I’ve felt more comfortable anywhere in the world, and with a society that reveres kids and collectively fights to protect them from a comparably low level of psycho predators, things also look good for our children whilst living here. Indeed, inhaling too much dust or being skittled by a wayward vehicle is probably the biggest worry our kids face on any Beijing street. For the most part, I feel very comfortable with the quality of the local people dealing with my kids – have never worried for their safety from over-keen shop assistants, nor has my heart performed back-flips if a waiter trails my son around the restaurant in between courses.

As a result, the freedom you can give your small children in this town is probably a little more lax than other places on the planet. But there are still limits. Dumping a toddler in a café for fifteen minutes while you go shopping is probably not the wisest decision. You can imagine my horror, then, when I recently witnessed a foreign woman do just that.

After a pointed finger and some whispered instructions in a language I couldn’t hear, the said woman disappeared, leaving her small daughter on a Starbucks couch, half-way between me and a Chinese woman. The mother had obviously gone to get a coffee and chocolate milk, but after a ten minute absence, the child started to get whiney and the eyebrows of the Chinese patron nearby rose into her hairline to match the position of my own. My suspicions seemed too awful to ponder.

I turned and scanned the café, then asked the waitress why the child’s mother was taking so long to get her coffee, but the waitress simply scratched her head and said “Mama? Mei you mama.” The Chinese patron and I stared at each other. Then we started asking each other pointless questions that of course, no one could answer, least of all a two-year-old who spoke a language neither one of us could put a dent in. “Hui shuo zhongwen ma?” we cautiously asked the child, “Parles-tu français? Speak English? Deutsch? Parlo Italiano?” All pulled blank stares.

My Chinese compatriot and I were stumped. Then the child really started to get restless and began rolling around on the floor under the table. The lovely Chinese patron could contain herself no longer and rushed over, saying “Too dirty, come and sit up on the chair.” The child snarled like a caged animal; the lady backed away. I continued to do what I do best – talk, ask questions – “Where’s mama gone?” in every language I could conjure. The child just glared at me and continued to roll on the floor. Chinese lady continued to quiz the wait-staff, but no one knew where Absent Mama had gone.

This probably went on for another five minutes before the mother finally breezed back into the coffee shop. The Chinese woman and I looked at each pointedly and buried ourselves in our mutual work. But my cheeks were flushed. My throat was constricting so tight around a massive lump of expletives and parenting opinion, my ears were going purple. How could I not say anything to this mother? China or no China. Relatively safe or not – how could this woman disband her toddler and rely on the possibility that two fairly sane-looking women might happily take social responsibility for her baby while she knicked off somewhere else? Who reasons in this way? Who? Psychos?

After several minutes of being unable to focus on my work due to my bulging throat and puce ears, I decided to leave. I packed up my things and moved past Absent Mama's table, but not without bending cleanly from my waist and hissing some pointed but very calm observations about her parenting skills. She stared at me as though I was a vigilante psycho.

Then I straightened and left. I slipped straight into a cab and I shook so hard, my teeth rattled. Was it from the adrenaline rush of giving her a serve? Was it because of the totally negligent position she placed her young daughter in? No. It was the numb reaction she gave me – almost a shrug and an “oh well” look. Let’s just hope that deep inside, this woman has been reminded that no matter where you are in the world, even somewhere as safe as Beijing, potential psychos are everywhere.