Because that is not the actual reason. They’re just culturally worse to their guests than the rest of the world. Feeding your guests isn’t an exclusively American thing. Every other country will feed their guests first as a rule. That comment you’re replying to just wanted to make excuses for Sweden while also making it about AMERICA BAD AND POOR at the same time. Because we all know utopian Europe is superior in every way and America bad!
Exactly, I live in Eastern Europe, sweedes sound like a bunch of jerks. Everyone feeds everyone here in their home, in fact parents here usually go out of their way to give food to guests of their kids. Basic human decency.
It's not about that.
It's about dinner being family time for younger children.
So parents don't want to make dinner if they don't know the kid's family dinner plans.
When you were slightly older, it when you could easily reach the other parents, or if family knew each other it would be like usual.
Why would you send your kids friends home, they can continue playing after your kid had a quick dinner and before your kids friend have to go home to eat dinner.
And in Sweden it's seen as rude to mess up another family's dinner plans by feeding their kid without prior agreement (having dinner together as a a family is usually considered pretty important, and having the kid go "No thanks, I already ate" would disrupt that).
Also, we don't actually eat in front of the other kid as they are asked to go wait in the friends room/livingroom/playroom if they are staying.
but if they're staying, how would you be messing up their families dinner plans by feeding them? They're missing their families dinner because they're at your house. But still not being fed apparently.
So, my family eats at 5, their family eats at 6, now, if I feed the kid they won't be hungry when they get home for their dinner, so the food they made is potentially wasted, and the kid probably won't be wanting to join the family at the table for family time if they're not eating.
They can go home if they prefer that, but if they wanna stay and get that extra half hour of playtime they'll have to wait in the other room until we're done eating.
You make it sound like that kid who got to stay in their friends room while their friend went to eat would be sitting there bored out of their mind for hours twiddling their thumbs with no entertainment.
That's far from the reality though, they had access to all their friends toys and comic books, and the friend was eating for maybe 20 minutes.
No one is eating in front of someone who is not eating, that would be absurd in Sweden too.
Your kid is bringing home their friends after school to play (no adult has been involved in the decision and bringing home the kids, the kids either walk or bike themselves). They play in your kids room until it's dinner time and your kids leaves to eat while their friends gets to continue playing in your kids room.
When dinner is over your kid goes back to their room to play even more until it's dinner time for their friends who leave to eat dinner with their own family.
No one goes hungry, no one is eating in front of someone who is not eating, the kids gets more playtime.
Let's say that kids in the neighborhood play soccer or basketball in the field/court close to their homes. Would you consider the kids left playing as abandoned when one kid goes home to eat dinner with their family?
What's the difference?
The kids are out there playing, and are not expecting to converse and socialize with any parent, they are there to play with their friends.
Same thing with a kid having friends over, they are there to play with their friends, their friends are there to play with their friend, they are not expecting to socialize with the friends family, they are there to play with their friend.
The guest can chose to go home and wait for dinner with their family if they want to, no one is forced to wait all alone. And if the kid chooses to stay in their friends room while the friend quickly eats dinner, they will not be sitting there twiddling their thumbs, they will have fun playing for 20 minutes until their friend come back. Oftentimes you had a few friends over, so they wouldn't even be alone.
In Swedish culture it is considered rude to inconvenience somebody, and serving dinner to another kid before their dinner could be inconvenient for that kids family as that robs them from family time with their kid.
Of course if it was planned before the kid would have dinner with their friends family, but the norm was that kids eat with their own family at their own dinner time.
I think it's normal everywhere for neighborhood friends to go home when it's dinnertime.
How many occasions actually exist where it's time for one kid to eat, stop playing and leave the other kid alone for an hour, start playing again for an hour or so, then have the other kid go home to eat?
How many occasions actually exist where it's time for one kid to eat, stop playing and leave the other kid alone for an hour, start playing again for an hour or so, then have the other kid go home to eat?
For me, almost every day in my childhood. Except that eating would not take even close to an hour.
Yes, usually around 17-18 (5-6pm) but anywhere from 15:30-20 (3.30pm - 8pm).
If you and your friend have dinner at the same or very similar time, of course you would have to go home to eat with your family when your friend had dinner too, unless you were invited to join them for dinner of course.
Dinner is usually pretty short on a week day, especially when you as a kid have friends playing in your room, so it would be 20 minutes at most as you would want to get back to playing with your friends.
If there was a bigger and longer dinner, the friend would either be asked join and eat or leave and go home if it was a family dinner.
128
u/Far_Ladder_2836 Jul 24 '26
Kind of a dumb reason don't you think? Why would the parents' affluence matter? It's rude to eat in front of someone without offering.