What do you think of this situation?

It could be worse. Kids get hurt. It happens.

We played on all the vehicles growing up, believe it or not, with lots of dangerous equipment, barn lofts, hay hauling rigs, balers, brush hogs, ran with the cows, and swam in cotton-mouth infested ponds, with turtles big enough to take off your toes. I guess in the country, we are told what we can and can’t do, and we listen, then take a leap of faith & have a ball.

I knew a boy who was killed playing in a construction site when he was run over by a large piece of equipment.

@KNOWITALL Just because you survived does not mean that it was not dangerous.

I know a kid who’s go cart rolled over and smashed his head in in 4th grade, but I still ride go carts. We all know someone who’s died from a car wreck or something but we still drive, life is intrinsically dangerous, so you gots to relax, my friend.

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I spent half my childhood on a cattle ranch. I agree with @KNOWITALL You are both right. But in the country, it is impossible to protect kids from everything. It’s just like she said. I guess that’s the difference between a city gal and a country gal.

I was eight the first time I drove a piece of heavy machienery by myself. Soon after that it was my job to mow the ten acre, treed lot with Pop Pop’s Kubota.

So, doesn’t seem like a big deal to me, really.

Do you commenters who grew up among farm machinery see any difference between climbing around the equipment on your farm and climbing all over something that doesn’t belong to you or your family, parked on a public street?

There is a huge difference between what @marinelife witnessed and what @KNOWITALL and some others describe. Those who grew up around this type of equipment most likely saw grown ups handling the equipment and were told what not to touch. Plus the equipment (I am guessing) belonged to the family. These kids were playing on equipment on a construction site next to their house. It wasn’t their equipment and they had no business playing on it. Not only do they have no idea what to touch and what not to, it isn’t theirs to mess with. I agree with @marinelife, the kids should not have been allowed to play on it.

A quick exploration under supervision would not be an issue for me. Kids are born to explore, but letting them “play” on it for minutes and minutes was not a great idea.
Sounds like you are getting in old fogie mode. lol
I do agree that it is also true it was not theirs to play on, but….refer to my first comment.
I would have gone up with them for a brief moment and then been done and not just allowed them to climb all over the machine after that.

Chalk it up to personality style, more free spirited vs. more anal.

Unfortunately lots of kids don’t know the difference between yours and ours. We used to live in the country, and my kids climbed trees all day long. One day we were visiting a friend who lived in town. That afternoon, her husband looked up and out of his upstairs bedroom window to see my son in the top of a tree towering above his house. He freaked out, and rushed down, demanding that my son come out of the tree, thinking that we’d have to call the fire department, and so on.

I went outside, and hollered up to my son, “Andy, it’s time to come down now!”

“OK, Mom!” he hollered back. Fifteen minutes later he was down. I felt so sorry for my friends.

@Coloma I would have taken my kids over there to look at it up close, but I would never have let them climb on it, much less be all over it unsupervised. Totally not an old fogey move, just a wise parenting choice IMO.

My first reaction is it doesn’t sound safe. Then I immediately have questions. Do the parents own the machines, did they personally rent it maybe? Do the parents know how to drive and control it if the kids hit something they shouldn’t? I am assuming this vehicle is someone else’s property, and for that reason alone I find it not acceptable. People have no respect for other people’s property. I don’t get it. I think it is a huge problem in our society.

My friends tease me that I am Miss it could happen. Meaning I worry about what bad things could happen. Just yesterday my husband did a good thing and told me, “you know how you always get frustrated when you warn people at the pool a storm is coming and they stay in the water and let their kids stay in the water?” My reply, “yeah.” He continues, “yesterday someone was hit by lightening during the storm on the beach. She died.” I take that as a way of him telling me he loves me. LOL.

Some people just don’t worry about something going wrong. They either don’t realize there is danger, or have some sort of aversion to thinking something can go wrong. My SIL tells me bad things will happen to me because I worry about them. She let her kid do all sorts of things I never would let my child do.

@SuperMouse

I did not mean to name call, just saying that a little supervised adventure is a good thing.
A quick scramble around, a discussion of safety perhaps, an explanation of how helpful as well as dangerous heavy equipment can be. In oither words…FUN and LEARNING! :-)

@Coloma I’m flying right beside you.

Well I couldn’t drive an earth mover now as an adult even with all the farm equipment I was around, so I don’t think those kids would’ve caused any harm at all. They’re expensive so I doubt the keys were in it, you know how much those things weigh? Like @Coloma said, just a different parenting style than you, not necessarily bad.

I’m not a parent, so don’t worry. :)

It could have been an excellent learning moment to teach the kids about leaving things alone that do not belong to them. Instead they were allowed to play with something that is most certainly not theirs and is not a toy. I wonder how much trouble they get into when they take or play with each other’s things without asking.

I taught my son not to touch things that weren’t his. He could look, and I would pick him up and bring him over where he could get a better vantage point, but I would not let him touch without permission from whomever owned the item and myself. My son had plenty of opportunities to play in the mud and explore, but he learned to respect other people and their property.

I get annoyed at parents who don’t teach the difference between play time and quiet time, and who allow the kids to run amok as if the world is their playground. We have a closet in our waiting room and my office is on the other side of the wall. Parents let their kids go in there and open and close/slam the doors with the hinges squeaking away – it’s very distracting. When I was a kid, we waited in the waiting room, and I always brought little things to keep my son occupied when we were in a place that it is appropriate to be calm and quiet.

This question reminded me of an incident from first grade, over 50 years ago.

I had stayed overnight (on a school night, too!) at my friend Bobby C’s house. It was a winter night, and it snowed that night. Bobby’s dad was going to drive us to school in the morning. The plow had come by the house just before Mr. C drove the car out of the driveway, so there was a mound of snow at the end of the drive that he had to shovel before we could leave. He left the car running to warm up while he went to the front of the car and started to shovel the snow there.

The car had an automatic shift, which I had never seen before (my dad always drove cars with manual transmissions), so he left the car in Neutral, I think, as he went to shovel. Bobby was sitting in the front seat and I was in back. The two of us started playing some kind of keep-away game, or mini tug-of-war over the front seat back. (I don’t recall that part so well.) But Bobby kept leaping up from the front and over the seat back to try to take something away from me; that much I do recall.

At some point in our game Bobby must have moved from the passenger side into the center of the seat (maybe because the seat back was lower there, and it was closer to where I was in the back seat behind the driver’s location), and he bumped the gearshift into Drive and in his jumping he was tapping the accelerator pedal. He did that several times before I finally heard Mr. C yelling – LOUDLY! – from the front of the car to quit that. I looked ahead and saw him frantically trying to jump the snow mound or onto the hood of the car as it kept running into him and backing off, running into him and backing off, as Bobby jumped and accelerated, or relaxed and let the car idle backwards. Bobby apparently didn’t hear, because he kept playing the game as I tried to get him to look at what was happening in front of me and behind him.

Eventually we got Bobby’s attention and things got back to more or less normal. Mr. C came back to the car and shut it off while he finished shoveling, a little bumped up (and wet!) but unhurt.

That ride to school was a little grim and chilly after Mr. C finally got back in the car with us. I don’t recall staying with them any more after that…

I’m with those who say that “private property” in this case trumps all of the kids-will-be-kids stuff. Although whenever new home construction was going on in our neighborhood – which was often in my childhood – we were all over those sites nearly every evening.

I didn’t see anything in the OP to suggest that the parents of the children didn’t own the vehicle. It’s parked next to their home.

If that’s the case, obvi, the kids shouldn’t be screwing around on someone else’s property. At least not while Mom can see them. As a kid, I always made sure my patents were paying no attention at all before locking my brother in one of the U-Haul trucks at the corner rental shop.

I don’t think it was a good idea and definitely not something I would do with my children, if it wasn’t their property. Danger aside, we make sure our children know not to touch/mess with things that are not theirs. IF my children were dying to see how the thing worked, I’d talk to the owner to see if they would be able to teach my children about it.

I have nothing against exploring and learning about things, but that still must be done with respect toward other people’s property. Not to mention, those things aren’t cheap and I know I couldn’t afford to replace one if my child somehow managed to break it.

If it was their equipment and their parents were comfortable with them using it as a jungle gym, good for them. I have nothing against that.

@Seek_Kolinahr Exactly. Doing it behind your parents back is something kids do. Doing it in front of them makes me feel like they will grow up to be adults who have no respect for other people’s property. Just like their parents.

I can see the danger in the behaviour @marinelife and you have first-hand experience of the possibly consequences.I think if we are very familiar with a situation, and especially if it’s something that’s always happened, we can become complacent to the possible dangers. People used to drive with babies on their knees and many, many survived the experience with no ill effects but now we know that in the unlikely event of an accident the outcome can be terrible.

A responsible farmer does not let their children play on their equipment. A responsible parent does not let their children play in a parked car. Sure, children will play where they shouldn’t, but a good parent doesn’t allow a child to play on heavy machinery. stupid

I’d never allow my kids to do that. I’m maniacally a tad over-protective, though, so I’m not always sure if I’m being reasonable or not.

I recall climbing into a digger when I was a kid, playing on some building site & seeing it sitting there, even had the keys in the ignition.
I started the engine & the bloody thing belched smoke, sounding like an angry bull…I ran off screaming like the fucked up coward I was :D

@harangutan We were not just playing, we were learning and helping, like kids on farms do from birth. I feel sorry for kids in bubble wrap homes.

@KNOWITALL I know about life on a farm. That’s why I answered the way that I did. I never said anything about not letting kids explore and have fun.

@KNOWITALL, and you honestly can’t see how “learning and helping, [as] kids on farms do from birth” is any different from being allowed to climb freely over someone else’s parked earth-moving equipment that you have no right or claim to?—and who probably would get sued if the kids got hurt? You don’t think understanding boundaries and respecting private property has anything to do with it?

How is learning to get along in your own environment being bubble-wrapped?

For those who wondered: There is a water/sewer construction project going on our street and the contractor leaves a number of piece of heavy equipment parked on the street. The piece of equipment the kids were playing on certainly did not belong to the parents. It was parked on a public street end.

@Coloma I certainly do not appreciate being judged as “anal” for being pruduent and respectful of the ownership rights of others.

I grew up on a farm. We were certainly never allowed to play on the farm machinery. A beating would have ensued if we did. Granted, it was more about us possibly wrecking the behemoth things more than our safety, but still. Most of our learning about farm safety was done in school. Our school was one of which most kids in attendance lived on farms. There were also posters about farm safety around the school. The local television channel had commercials about it as well.

I do not think it was right for the children in question to be allowed to play on the machine. Seems like a huge lack of respect for property…and bad judgement on the parents part. The parents should have asked the owner if the kids could see up top.

@jeruba Kids should be able to be kids and have fun, not get hurt, but have fun. Apparently our definitions of ‘over-protective’ are different.

I don’t believe I used the expression at all, @KNOWITALL, much less offer a definition. I don’t think you’re reading very carefully. Nor do I think you’re making an honest distinction. Nobody on this thread is expressing a view that kids shouldn’t have fun.

I taught my city-born kids to be comfortable climbing trees when they could barely walk. When I was a kid, kids ran free all day in the summertime and went home to their unlocked houses when they got hungry or the sun went down. I’ve given my children all the freedom I could consistent with their time and place. But I’ve never let them think they had a right to invade other people’s territory or help themselves to others’ property.

@Jeruba In the country, here (maybe not in your area) neighbors are like extended family. We help each other, we share and attend major life events, etc… I was allowed free range in our country neighborhood, some of which had children, and we’d pick apples from the neighbors trees, fish in the other neighbors pond, play in another neighbors creek, ride our bikes down another neighbors awesomely steep driveway on our bikes, it wasn’t an issue.

Sure, there are boundaries, but not many, and none of us kids grew up to be criminals that didn’t know our boundaries in life. Must be a regional difference, I guess.

@KNOWITALL, @marinelife made clear that this particular equipment belonged to a contractor working on a site near the house. Would you have been allowed to play on the equipment in that case?

@SuperMouse Allowed? Probably not while any of the workers were there, but I bet grandpa would have taken me for a walk in the evening and let me check it out.