It wouldn’t happen that often, because when one kid comes over to another kid’s place to play, then when dinnertime rolls around, that first kid typically also has a home where their parents have dinner waiting and are expecting them home around the same time.
If you’re planning things in such a way that it doesn’t make sense to go home to eat, well, then you can plan things otherwise. Talk it over with the other kid’s parents, whatever. I grew up in Sweden (as you can guess), and while eating at friends’ houses definitely wasn’t the norm, it’s not like it didn’t happen from time to time.
Exactly, all my friends that lived further away than walking distance i always ate with. Its only the friends who are close where you go home, spend time with your family and eat, then go back out again. How is that weird?
I had my best friend live about half a mile (800 meters) from me and I ate at his house all the time and he ate at mine. It was normal if we were hanging out and our parents made dinner that we would just eat together. Different cultures do different things
It's weird because it's like saying "We like you enough to have you over, but not enough to feed you even though your family has food too." Like duh, of course my family is having dinner down the road. But if someone is a guest in your home, you treat them like family.
Nah it's not like you are invited in you just roam around the neighborhood with the other kids and when it's dinner time you are supposed to go home to eat. Everyone were eating at about the same time at least in the factory towns
I didn't say anything about being invited, I said when you are a guest in someone's home, you feed them because that's polite in every culture. But for some reason it's different in Sweden.
Just different customs, it wasn't seen as polite to send someones kid home to dinner after you had feed them. It's just that a custom born in a time where food was hard to come by, and you were supposed to say no to food at someone else's home.
And that no was respected.
And of we go to this thread some 30 years after this custom is nearly dead.
It’s just different culture. It’s seen as rude to the parent of the other child to have them make food and then the kid comes home full.
A bit of cultural context is that usually you have no idea who the parents to the kids are. The kid will be a random kid you have never seen before that your kid met that day and dragged into you house to play video games with.
I am half Latino and over in Central America there would never be a guest in the house if the parents hadn’t basically vetted each other in advance. Kids don’t just play in the street unless you live in a gated community. So while you treat every guest as family, you also choose your guests.
But in Sweden, a high trust society with low crime, kids just roam.
It's weird because you have to leave to do a normal thing instead of adapting the normal thing to the circumstances. Most cultures are going to find it weird to break a social situation as we are highly social creatures organized around socialization. Like we have restaurants as a normal part of life so we can eat in a more social setting. We don't eat in private
I'm guessing part of it is because most of us are in the US where popping home for dinner isn't usually a walkable thing in a reasonable amount of time. At least when I was growing up and I visited relatives in an area where kids played outside it would be normal to be at someones house playing then go home for dinner and go back out. Someones mom would usually come out and ask if you were staying for dinner though.
More embarrassing than never cooking for your child because they’re always three doors down at a neighbour kid’s house around dinner time simply because they’ve got a bigger garden? Why would it be weird for your kid to come home to eat?
And if the kids hang around the one house because, like I said, they have a bigger garden? Or only one parent works? Or those parents let them watch TV? Lots of kids had a friend whose house they were at most of the time rather than it balancing out. I was always at my best friends house rather than he at mine because my mum was free to drop me off there and his wasn’t free to do the same, and his house was on the bus route into town, mine wasn’t.
We’re talking every day - what if the host family are poor? Suddenly they’re paying to feed an extra child constantly, and the other family are never seeing their kids at dinner. Why is it so bizarre the idea of just going home for dinner? I always did that
I'm in the US and I basically handle it the same way. I text the mom to see if friend can stay for dinner if they want and vice versa. If not, I send them home for 30 minutes if they're close by. Even in the 90s (I was a kid) I had to call my mom to ask if I can eat dinner at my friends house- granted I was further away.
Now in my husband's case- his house was more screwed up then mine. He just ate whenever he could. One of his best friends parents always just set a place for him.
I never went to play at a friend's house and didn't get fed, no one ever came to our house to play and didn't get fed. Might not be a full meal but we had snacks at least. I grew up poor in the US, so lots of immigrant families in the neighborhood, it was a common theme with all of them. I swear the only English word some of those grandmas knew was "eat".
It was very common to get snacks, usually fika with cordial (fruit/berry concentrate mixed with water) and some cookies/cake, where and when I grew up in Sweden.
Dinner however is more of a private family time thing, and the expectations from parents was that their kid was eating dinner with their own family, even if their friends ate earlier/later.
Of course we were occasionally invited to dinner when we were over at a friends place, but the norm was that we were going home (by walking or taking our bike, our parents never drove us) for dinner.
We do (or at least did) since dinner is usually eaten either in the kitchen or the dinner room, and you were playing with your friends in their own room.
So while the friends left their room to go to the kitchen/dinner room to eat, you would continue playing in their room.
And if the kid told you that they had dinner waiting for them at home, would you just force them sit there at the table while you ate, or would you let them stay in the room they were playing in and continue playing while your kid finished their dinner to continue playing with their friends after?
I would call their parents to get their permission to have them eat with us, if their parents wouldn't want them to eat in my house, for some reason, I will wait until the kids left to eat. It's basic decency to not eat while the other party is forced to go hungry
Why would you call the parents when the kid clearly told you that they had dinner waiting for them at home?
That's super weird, why don't you believe the kid, and why would you assume that the kids parents wouldn't have dinner waiting for them at home?
Because the parents can change their mind, while the kid will have to obey his parents. Even if there was dinner waiting at home, I can tell the parents "sorry for the inconvenience, but can your kid eat with us, it would be our pleasure to have him and we are enjoying his company" and the parents can say "sure thing" rehatdless of their previous instructions to the kid and regardless of whether dinner was ready in their house.
And if they say no, then that's fine. But I wouldn't just leave a kid hungry if I can do otherwise.
And also, kids below a certain age aren't a good source of information on what's ok or not, and their parents are the final judges on what's okay, not them.
But the kid maybe wanted to eat at home, and why would the parents change their mind if they had planned for the family to eat dinner, they would expect their kid to be present at dinner time?
Is not family dinner something that is important in your culture?
It just sounds very disrespectful, kids have agency of their own, they have agency to decide to walk/bicycle to your home, they have agency to decide that they want to play with your kid, and they have the agency to decide if they want to socialize with their friends parents or not.
Who has 5-20 kids everyday at home? Stop thinking of weird extreme hypotheticals, even in the third world they feed their guests. Over there, not doing that is the actual uncivilized thing. Hell, it is everywhere I can think of. Such an insane thing.
So you would on a random Wednesday cook dinner for 30 people without knowing? Just get home from work with your groceries and there's 30 people there, just easy start cooking then?
Even if it's just five extra so ten people, no worries to cook like that every day?
Yeah the culture has traditionally been that you have to decide between the parents where the children are eating. Partly due to the fact that it's been considered rude to send a full child home when the parents have made dinner for them (since it's been seen as patronising and can rob that child's parents of the dinner experience). The solution has always just been communication.
No, this is just not true. Parents will communicate with each other, and most cases this happens it’s because the child has expressed a wish to eat at home. If the other family then have dinner slightly before the child being picked up, this happens.
My parents never knew where I was between the end of the school that day and dinner time, how could they have communicated with other parents if they didn't know where I was?
No parent would drive or pick up any child, we were free and responsible for our own transportation (walking or by bike), and no adult would have been involved in children going home to one another to play.
It was the responsibility of the child to know the time they were supposed to be home for dinner or call home and ask if they could eat dinner at their friends place if they were offered, but the norm was that kids would eat dinner with their own family.
It's specifically in the circumstance of children who play together after school every day. Everyone eats at their own home with their own family. If that wasn't the custom one family would be feeding half the class every day.
How is it bad to expect people to eat together with their family on a week day? It's important family time and serves as a good time for the kids to break because they have homework or chores after dinner.
It's not bad to expect that a kid will be fed by their family; I think what seems bad here is the assumption they've definitely been fed/aren't hungry/aren't deserving of any food elsewhere under specific circumstances where they're hanging out with your child.. it's the "fuck no, go and eat at home,, you peasant" attitude to kids I think is getting to people.
I will say though, that kids and parents also shouldn't just expect it. When I was a kid we would ask if it was okay with both parents to have dinner here or there.
It's not bad to expect that a kid will be fed by their family
What seema bad here is the assumption they've definitely been fed
So it's not bad to expect that a kid will be fed, but it's bad to assume that a kid will be fed?
I'm not entirely sure you understand the timeline here. It's Tuesday. School's out at 15:30pm. A few kids walk home together to play after school. The guest kids will call their parents at work to tell their parents where they are. The kids continue playing until it is time for the guests to go home because their parents have/are making dinner. Sometimes that time is after the host family has dinner.
I had one friend whose parents worked for the post while mine worked in at office. Since they started work at 05:00am and my parents at 08:00am, they had dinner much earlier than my family did (usually 16-16:30, while mine was at 18:00). If we went to my place after school, he would have leave before my parents even got home, because it was dinnertime for him, or if I was at his place they'd eat while I continued playing because my parents weren't home to make dinner yet (they'd usually come pick me up).
The guest kids will call their parents at work to tell their parents where they are
Not even that, my parents never knew where I was between the end of school that day and dinner, unless I called to ask if I could eat at a friends house since their parents offered me dinner.
I never knew the phone number to my parents place of work, only my home phone number, so if no parent were home yet I'd have no one to tell either :D
This was before everyone had cellphones, and most kids grew up as latch key kids where they had their own key to the home so that they could get some snacks after school even if no parent had made it home from work - and of course serve any friend they brought with them.
It's funny that you read aggression (fuck off, peasant) into a custom which is very much the opposite. Growing up in Sweden is very egalitarian and nothing about the customs discussed here are about status or who deserves what.
Having 1-2 extra mouths to feed 3-4 times per week would be a significant increase in food budget. And it's entirely unplanned so you don't know which days you need to buy additional food for.
Sounds like you also grew up in a culture where food doesn't cost anything. Here it's a significant part of your monthly budget and adding on 20% will have a big impact on you.
It's backhanded to make it out like swedes dont value hospitality. One could respond to your post with "well I'm from a culture we're we value parents being able to feed their own kids" and youd probably think that unfair to say. Swedes value independence and are a bit formal about things like this. We usually dont make more food than we have to, so if someone is joining for dinner you usually plan that a bit ahead of time. Also we do ask kids if they wanna stay over for dinner, not at all uncommon. Speaking as a 90's kid, staying for dinner would usually mean staying until close to bed times, and sometimes you'd get sent home by your or their parents if there was chores, homework, or other things to do. I think fundementally our ideas of hospitality are different, I never felt it lacking growing up.
Good thing it isn't a normal thing then. Some people in Sweden did this, but far from everywhere, I've never had that happen in my childhood and even less so nowadays
The meme is very oversimplified and reality is much more complex. I’m a Swede. Growing up, if I was at a friends house that was within walking distance of where I lived, I would have rather walked home to eat dinner there, than eat with adults I barely knew. On the other hand, if going home was not an option, I ate dinner there.
I am Swedish and this has never happened to me. I don’t know how common that is but I did not even know it was “part of the culture” until I saw these types of memes on the internet.
my best friend in schools mum would refuse to feed me lmaoo
like if she came to mine she got dinner, but if I went to hers, I was told to stay in her room while she went downstairs to eat & then she'd come back up. it was so odd. she'd get given biscuits or something and I wasn't allowed any 😭
her dad would sneak me some pudding after they were done eating and say not to tell her mum 😭
anyway, being left alone without even a phone back then, that's how I found a notepad lying on her desk that was full of pages and pages about how she hated me and made everyone around me hate me too lol
I'm sure if the kid is spending the night they get fed, or if their parents are like "Hey, we are super busy tonight, can my kid eat over there while they are there?" They wouldn't say no, its just not expected. Honestly, it would save a lot of trouble with dietary restrictions and such.. or if the kid just asks for food.
It's not real. As an adult, if someone comes over you offer food of course. As a kid parents would often ask if you wanted to eat there or call your parents and check.
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u/Sociolinguisticians Jul 24 '26
I get that it’s probably just the culture, but even the thought of doing that to a guest makes me shudder.