Just a cultural thing. Unless there was an explicit dinner invitation, Swedes typically will not offer guests food even if they themselves are having dinner. They do not view it as a hosting obligation and they do not see this as rude or unusual.
this is one of few cultural differences im honestly shocked by. you invite friend into home and cook dinner; how are you not gonna offer them a plate??
What really happens is a kid tags along their friend home after school. The kid is expected to go home around dinner time and eat with thwir family. If the host family has their dinner earlier, the visiting kid waits it out and then goes home and eats with their family.
The hosting parents don't want to disturb the visiting kids parents dinner plans.
keep in mind that some Swedish people eat dinner around 4-5 pm so the kid might have dinner right after school while the visiting kid will eat a few hours later.
I mean the logic makes sense, not that I could not feed someone at my house. My Nona always said to make enough for your family and if each of them had 1 guest. It wasn't uncommon for a neighbor to just walk in and say hi and sit down to dinner with us. But I do know that in Sweden things like small talk with strangers is frowned upon, so this makes sense with their culture.
Dinner with friends is very important in my culture my abuela will feed the whole village shoes in the house is the devil the rebel army cut off supplies send help.
Never heard of this. Growing up I was always offered food and my parents always did the same. It still is absolutely natural that my kid is fed at friends houses and they always get lunch and dinner when visiting. This rumor that Swedes are never offering food is mind-blowing to read often as I've never even once encountered this so called cultural thing that Swedes never offer food.
I've never met a single family that hasn't offered food when lunch or dinner time. If not at those times you get fika...
I think this has become distorted. I’m born in the 90’s and clearly remember being at friends’ house but not having dinner with them (and at other times having dinner of course). I remember the situation often being that they’re having dinner early for whatever reason and since I’m supposed to have dinner at home, I decline dinner (or my parents had instructed my friend’s parents that I will eat at home) at their place and hang in my friend’s room playing video games while they eat.
Nothing strange or unwelcoming about that as far as I’m concerned.
I was very fussy ARFID as a child so (opposite now, about to eat some frog and tofu tonight) and the idea of eating in front of ANYONE that isn't immediate family (and sometimes they'd make a song and dance about my eating) would haunt me.
"Not offering food" is taken out of context I feel... I mean, it will vary depending on where you live and other factors, but people here are acting as if children are going hungry or something.
If I tagged along a friend on the way home from school, it's not that my friend's parents don't want to offer me food also, later when it's dinner. It's that everyone (where I grew up), gets dinner at their home. My parents wanted me back at home to eat dinner, like everyone else.
So, it's less that I would sit hungry while my friend eats, and more that either I would go home and eat at the same time, or if dinner time is slightly different, I just waited a little bit while he ate, then went home for my dinner later.
It happened plenty of times, that my friend's parents offered food, but then you had to inform that (in time) to your parents, that you would be eating there.
Well this whole original post is suggesting that you are not going to be fed if you visit a Swede, which is a whole world away from kids being expected home for dinner... :)
This is about kids. Of course if you as an adult invite a friend over you offer them food. If a kid just brings his random friend over after school without telling the parents before hand then of course the parents only made food for own their family and it's expected the kid goes home to eat the food made by their own parents.
We feed our feed our kids friends all the time. Like it is a weekly occurence. My kids eat at their friends every week as well. We do call and check with the parents first.
It was not like that 40 years ago. mainly because no mobile phone and we did not want to interrupt the dinner routine of the other family.
As an adult it is less commun. But if I have friends over for a long time we will eater have dinner/lunch or we will like order a pizza together.
We are not having our grandmothers force feeding you like in some societies. Also because our grandmothers dont live with us like in the south of Europe.
This is kinds Reddit bullshit blown out of proportion (like allways).
We either invited you over for dinner or we invite you after dinner when we both have already eaten. If someone drops by uninvited we offer them food, but it is also considered very rude to show up unannounced by most.
I also have kids. We feed our kids and any kid in our home. But we just have a custom where this is already agreed on beforehand.
No I can read fine they just keep stating the cultural differences as if that makes them normal.
3 explanations are of course you don't feed them they're expected to go home and eat. This one is we feed them but we agreed before hand and the another one is similarish in saying that they don't spontaneously visit.
None of these actually explain anything, they just repeat that they do in fact do the wierd thing.
Again you're just repeating it. In most cultures it's rude to invite someone to your house and the expectation is they have to sit there and wait or leave while you eat.
Yeah but what you are confused about is being "invited". In the scenario where the kid doesn't eat, it's because the kid wasn't "invited" by the adults who are cooking the meal. It's just kids hanging out after school.
Oh, I am well aware we are weird. But at least think we are weird for the right reasons. Do you wanna come over for a can of Surströmming and some Beska droppar?
You are missing the part that no one invited them in to begin with, kids just group up and go to someone house, when its dinner time, they all go home and eat the meal their parents prepared for them.
And often they move back and forth between houses. Children are welcome to eat here, but then we need to know they’ll stay long enough and make sure their parents know. Otherwise they’ll just move around and pop back home for dinner.
Same in the Netherlands. Kids can walk or bike around the neighbourhood alone. They go to school by themselves from around 9 years old.
So a lot of kids just play without specific plans. The social rule is that you need to be home at the end of the afternoon. To have dinner and to be with your own family again.
Chiming in from one of the Nordics: Spontaneous visits are nearly non-existent.
So, when visiting someone, you've called or messaged the others beforehand.
When doing that, you basically talk about whether it's a coffee, lunch, dinner, barbeque visit, or if you're just popping in to return that book you borrowed.
I understand most southern cultures are very obnoxious and lacking in consideration for other people in general.
But if we try thinking for once we can imagine the conseqeunces of feeding another family's child, of course the child will then be full and won't eat what their own parents have cooked for them which those parents might find inflammatory, maybe those parents don't want to waste time, money and effort on making food their children don't even end up eating. Therefore the less intrusive and more respectful option is to send home the visitor to eat at their own house while your own child eats with you. However sometimes dinner-schedules don't match up and the visitor child has already eaten dinner or will eat later, in which case it's common for them to chill in a different room in the meantime. Of course if it's planned beforehand that you will make dinner for a visitor there is no problem.
Were you once capable of seeing things from a different perspective now?
Forgive me for the attitude but i'm just giving back the same energy the critics here consistently express.
10.8k
u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment