articles
China Elevator Stories
"Eight hours."
Children aren’t always kept sufficiently safe by Chinese parents or grandparents.
05/08/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
After finding out that my ex-husband leaves our children alone for eight hours straight, sometimes two days a week, I contacted an information hotline at the court in Siping to ask whether this is legally permissible. (I had already looked it up on Baidu, and many people warned against doing this, but I haven’t had enough time yet to check the specific laws regarding leaving children of their age—8 and 11—unsupervised at home.)
In my view, this is completely illegal and absolutely unacceptable—especially since they are not the kind of quiet children who sit still and stay away from the kitchen. Even then, a child’s life could be at risk without supervision, because something dangerous can always happen—and not necessarily because of anything the child has done wrong.
The court also said they shouldn’t be left at home without any supervision.
In the case of my two children, they have caused more than one fire within a relatively short time. I told them to inform me whenever they planned to cook, and I used to give them 5 jiao when they did. They cook for themselves all the time, which feels a bit… extreme. I’m not against children learning to do age-appropriate tasks, but this seems more like parentification and neglect than healthy autonomy or independence.
The 5 jiao incentive worked better with my older son, but even that has now stopped being effective. When children are treated like adults—allowed to do anything they want without having to ask for permission—what you’ll be dealing with is behavior that’s not just inappropriate but extremely dangerous. When my children nearly killed themselves running into traffic and doing all sorts of reckless things in Chinese streets—things they should have long been taught not to do—and didn’t listen to me, I decided it was time to send them back to their father. But he is far too stubborn to see how reckless his parenting is and how much he endangers their lives by not teaching them basic safety rules.
I still remember how he let his mother take the lead when it came to safety. While he appeared supportive of car seats and seatbelts when they were babies and young toddlers, he dropped the act once he realized he could hurt me by putting their lives at risk. That’s exactly what he did. He knew how much it bothered me that his mother didn’t wear a seatbelt in our car—so he started putting pizza boxes on the backseat, driving his 18-year-old affairs around town, and decided reinstalling the children’s car seats after delivering a pizza was too much work. (The pizza could have easily gone in the trunk—just saying.)
I have to mention this because you may think that his mother was certainly responsible with regard to my children’s safety, but she was not responsible at all. She constantly pretended that safety rules were not rules intended for her to follow, and she always stole the stroller out of my hand, only to push it into the middle of the street, where cars were driving. When I asked her to push it only on the pedestrian walkway, she simply ignored me and later complained to my former husband, so I would be painted as the evil person who had done something wrong to her. In the end, he supported her; she was just enabled to continue her reckless behavior, and I was treated as the scapegoat who could be blamed for everything—including being “too controlling” and “not loving and respectful enough towards his mother.”
She would also cross the street without looking left and right, walk in the street when not pushing a stroller, not caring if there were cars driving on that street, and not buckle up in any car, including my ex-husband’s—where I asked her to buckle up so we wouldn’t have to carry the consequences of her not buckling up in the case of a car accident, and so our children wouldn’t learn from her that they didn’t need to buckle up.
My ex-husband, who used to support putting our children in car seats when they were babies, later sided with his mother and placed pizza boxes in the back instead of car seats, effectively teaching our children to just sit in the rear seats without needing a car seat or even buckling up. His irresponsible behavior always made me angry, since it’s really easy to understand that seatbelts make children much safer during a car ride. At that time, certain Chinese cities had already implemented regulations requiring the use of seatbelts and car seats for children—including Shenzhen, where we had lived before the birth of our older son.
In the end, of course, I was the bad guy for trying to implement “European regulations” and for supposedly “discriminating against Chinese people,” who—at least in Siping—overwhelmingly don’t buckle up, don’t buckle up their children, and don’t encourage anyone else to either. Why? Because they believe they’re such excellent drivers that they don’t need to. Whenever I try to buckle up or tell my children to, I hear: “不用系安全带” (“You don’t need to buckle up”). They say this not only to me, but also to my children, thereby trying to teach them that seatbelts aren’t necessary. I always reply by telling the driver that this is an agreement I have with my children, and that they do indeed need to buckle up, which usually makes most of the drivers keep their mouths shut and not say anything more about the issue.
Recently, I took a cab in Siping, and the driver almost physically attacked me when I insisted on buckling up. He tried to stop my hand as I reached for the seatbelt and got uncomfortably close to me, saying there was no need because he was an “excellent driver.” (He certainly wasn’t.) He then tried to assault me but stopped when I said something—I don’t remember exactly what, but it made him stop threatening me any further. You know how it is—you go into shock when someone reacts in such a bizarre, irrational way that you just don’t expect, and you forget the details of what exactly happened.
Boundaries are certainly healthy for children—but clearly not something many Chinese parents implement. At least, that’s been my experience.
I remember all the car accidents I witnessed growing up, and I remember several people dying in them. That’s why I take this issue seriously.
Now, some people will call you names—accuse you of racism for trying to implement “Western rules in China,” and say you’re acting as if you’re morally superior. But that’s not the point. The point is simple: Statistically, more people die in car accidents if they weren’t wearing seatbelts than if they were. Many Chinese cities now have regulations requiring passengers to buckle up, but almost 100% of drivers in Siping will prevent you from doing so.
Cars in China usually have an automated voice telling you to fasten your seatbelt, and a beeping sound if someone hasn’t. But drivers just buy a fake buckle clip and insert it into the slot so the car won’t beep. Genius, isn’t it? But seriously, these people will come up with any excuse to undermine new laws and regulations—especially the ones that actually make sense and could save lives.
I have added the conversation here in which my son tells me they are being left alone at home without any supervision:
Me, to my son: “You said that you can catch water together with your brother and I can stay at home alone, right? But you also said that in Siping, your brother is normally with you when you’re at home, right?”
Him: “Yes.”
Me: “So you aren’t normally home alone?”
Him: “No, sometimes I am also home alone.”
Me: “Okay, so sometimes you are also home alone? And sometimes you are home with your brother? And dad’s at work, right?”
Him: “Yes.”
Me: “How about your grandparents?” (This conversation took place in July 2025, before I learned that his paternal grandmother had died in September 2024.)
Him: “Grandpa and grandma are at their place.”
Me: “So they aren’t at your place. In this case, are you at home alone for a short period of time or for a long period of time?”
Him: “One day. Approximately eight hours. Eight hours.”
Me: “I understand what you were saying. But I am not allowed to do so. I can’t let you go out alone while I am alone at home; we have to go outside the three of us together. I also can’t let you stay home with just the two of you—an adult is not allowed to do this. We can also get water tomorrow. Let’s get water together tomorrow.” (We had to catch clean cooking water from a nearby water station.)
Him: “Okay.”
Have you ever had problems with cab drivers not allowing you to buckle up?