Canadian father says Beijing changed his thinking on parenting, safety

Merlin Palmer, 40, stood out amongst the elderly grandparents while waiting outside the door of a kindergarten in Beijing. When his son, Arthur, came running out, he hoisted the five-year-old onto his shoulders for the walk home. A passing child greeted the pair with a friendly "Hello" in English.

Palmer works from home as an IT engineer, so picking up Arthur has become a routine.

Back in 2012, when the Canadian first came to China, he planned to make the country only a brief stop. "I was thinking about traveling around the world as an English teacher," he said. That was before he met his future wife, Bonny Liu.

Over the last 14 years, Palmer has built a happy family in Chaoyang district — the couple, their son, and their 1-year-old pup, Chocolate.

Palmer said living in Beijing has changed the way that he thinks about parenting and safety. "Parents don’t have to worry about guns or drugs, or racism or bullying," he said. "Arthur is in a classroom of 99 percent full-blood Chinese children, and he has never experienced any kind of othering because of that. He is very much accepted and loved within his peer group."

When talking to his expat friends, a common consideration for not moving back is the safety in Beijing. Palmer credits the whole of society for prioritizing child safety, citing the quality of food at school, protective policies, and kindness from strangers.

Once, while spending time as a family at the Solana shopping mall near Chaoyang Park, Arthur became separated from his parents. "I was extremely anxious at that moment," said Liu, his mother. "I went to the monitoring room and asked the security staff for help, and everyone pitched in to look for my child."

In the meantime, Arthur had been thinking on his feet. He’d found a police officer and stayed with him until Palmer caught sight of them. The family was reunited. "Deep down, I felt he was safe here in Beijing, and we would definitely find him," she said.

During weekends, the family shares leisure time at Chaoyang Park, picnicking, riding bicycles, or going for boat rides. Arthur has a swimming class, which Palmer watches through a window as he works out in a gym nearby.

"In China, there are a lot of policies about children’s safety that may feel restrictive to some people, but in the end, they make a meaningful impact on the safety of children day-to-day," he said.

Video by Haydn Fogel, Chen Meiling, and Wang Songsong/China Daily