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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Toddler loves watching diggers and building sites - AIBU to let him?

120 replies

Jean24601Valjean · 05/10/2023 11:49

This may be a really stupid question but DS absolutely loves diggers etc. We can't go past a building site or other type of workmen activity without him asking to stop and watch. Sometimes I say no if we are in a rush but otherwise I often stop so he can watch for a bit. Sometimes it is clear that the workmen are happy with this e.g. if they wave or say hello to him. But other times it's not clear and I wonder if I'm being unreasonable. Like, what other jobs is it OK for a small child you don't know to sit and watch you do it? On the one hand I think it's nice because he obviously thinks what they are doing is the coolest thing ever but on the other hand I feel like it might come off as intrusive. Am I overthinking this or am I being unreasonable by stopping to watch? Of course I could ask to see if they mind but that's not always possible and if I'm honest I feel a bit silly doing so. I don't want to interrupt their work!

OP posts:
DoraSpenlow · 05/10/2023 12:56

My husband is 74. He still stops and watches diggers and earth movers on building sites!

sobeyondthehills · 05/10/2023 12:58

DS was obsessed with emergency vehicles when he was younger, we use to live opposite a hospital, his favourite thing was sitting on the bench opposite and watching the ambulances going in and out. That was a whole load more uncomfortable, then when he got into his tractor and digger phase.

Needmorelego · 05/10/2023 13:00

There were probably toddlers that insisted on watching Stonehenge being built 😂

spitefulandbadgrammar · 05/10/2023 13:04

We stopped and watched some diggers on the way home from school yesterday at my five year old’s request. She’s grown too cool to care about bin day but we used to leave early for nursery every week so she could watch them all on their rounds.

hookiewookie29 · 05/10/2023 13:05

Carry on! Lots of learning opportunities there!
My minded children love watching the bin men!

SeveraltrainsManytracks · 05/10/2023 13:07

Totally normal.

Trucks, fire engine, bin lorries, building sites, farm vehicles etc are my DSs favourite days out 🙄 today we stood in the rain to watch someone putting a new gatepost in on a footpath 😂

We can also get on the hill behind the local quarry to watch the earth movers in summer.

Very close to where we live is a farm with a cafe above a milking parlour so kids can watch cows being milked. It’s great! He watches the cows, I drink coffee.

EeesandWhizz · 05/10/2023 13:09

I wave at a LOT of kids when I'm driving a tractor through the town.

I also have a lot of hair flicks, tits & teeth from older teens not expecting the tractor to be driven by a fat, middle-aged woman.

mintz · 05/10/2023 13:16

I'd say all normal!!

My now 6yo son has always loved watching wind turbines on YouTube, not just any wind turbines but ones on fire! Even more points if they fall down! And he still does albeit not as much. I still tell myself it's normal! He isn't showing any other signs of becoming a pyromaniac and is uninterested in anything else fire related so I assumed it's more the fascination with the actual turbines! We have some near us and he likes to drive close to them and is clearly mind blown by their size.

MumblesParty · 05/10/2023 13:21

We did this all the time when my kids were little. It was great - free entertainment - sometimes I’d even sit down with a flask of coffee! They loved trains too, so we’d just sit on the station platform and watch the trains coming and going.

MumblesParty · 05/10/2023 13:24

NotMeNoNo · 05/10/2023 11:59

As long as you are watching from a safe place it should be fine. Have you got that book "Dig, dig, digging'" it explains all the different types of machines.

I used to love that book. Diggers and good at dig dig digging!

FrangipaniBlue · 05/10/2023 13:29

Octavia64 · 05/10/2023 11:52

Beat me to it!

Reugny · 05/10/2023 13:29

My DD was so excited recently when she saw a crane actually moving something.

We have spent ages looking at cranes in the skyline but I think it was the first occasion she has seen a crane move something right in front of her.

Oh thanks to a well-known water company there are always diggers around the area, so we have to stop and watch them if they are actually moving.

Cowlover89 · 05/10/2023 13:30

Yanbu

Saschka · 05/10/2023 13:33

Oh god, all toddlers love diggers (and fire engines). Construction workers are completely used to this. As long as you are on the pavement and not blocking their access, you are totally fine. I’ve spent many hours holding DS up so he could see down into a building site.

Adarajames · 05/10/2023 13:36

I still stop and watch interesting machinery work, be it in construction, road laying or agricultural. The complexity of them these days is fascinating (and I’m 50!)

TruthRevolution · 05/10/2023 13:40

My oldest DS is 21 now, he used to love doing exactly this when he was little. Didn't think twice about it.
We also went to digger land 😁

PrincessHoneysuckle · 05/10/2023 13:44

Diggerland is really good we took ds when younger

CornflakesOnTheSolesOfHerShoes · 05/10/2023 13:53

Definitely not unreasonable! See also farm machinery, emergency vehicles and public transport. There’s a haulage company near us which, shamefully, I hadn’t recognised as the world of wonders it clearly was. When DS was in preschool they did a class trip there and spent the entire day sitting in the cabs of lorries, watching people operate the fork lifts and, as a final highlight, watching a lorry go through the car wash.

Snugglemonkey · 05/10/2023 13:58

My son was like this. We watched on you tube and he learned so much about construction. There was a big new estate being built in the town we lived in then, so we walked around it every day. They got to know us and would wave at him. Then they would toot at him and the day the excavators were leaving, they invited him in and let him sit in it. He was beside himself.

What is wring with embracing their passions?

WithIcePlease · 05/10/2023 14:00

My nephew obsessed with diggers and workmen. The bin men all wave at him now and have shown him their truck.
I took him to a new park with equipment he'd never been on before and all he wanted to do was watch the man on the motor mower 🙄😂

user123212 · 05/10/2023 14:09

You're describing life with a toddler 😆, standing outside construction sites.

I remember we had nice waves from lots of builders/bus drivers/even airplane pilots!

AngelsWithSilverWings · 05/10/2023 14:12

This sounds like my DS ( now 18) who was obsessed with diggers when he was 18 months old. One holiday in Tenerife we had to take him to watch the digger that was working on some wasteland near our hotel every day. One day the operator made the digger sort of wave at him. It made his day.

RavingStone · 05/10/2023 14:22

Oh I've known plenty of toddlers take trips especially to see building sites! My neighbour's kids brought chairs and snacks to watch our road be resurfaced.

I've known small children who have been allowed cab rides on trains and to press buttons on bin lorries and mini diggers too. The majority of people are lovely to curious toddlers in my experience.

Adarajames · 05/10/2023 14:22

We went to Diggerland for our 30th birthday! My twin was military at the time so had driven 4x4s and trucks, but not construction vehicles, so we went and had great fun racing dumper trucks and building huge mud piles! 😄