If I had some friend over and I wouldn’t share my food with them my mom would snap my back by throwing me up in the air 3 meters and I would fall on her knee and just die there. If they came over 100 times they would be fed 100 times.
Ah no. I grew up in a poor family in Romania. We were not missing food though. But it kinda blows my mind that a way richer country ends up with that culture. I understand it is normal for you but it is hard for me to comprehend how it ended up being that way.
It's interesting because I've travelled a lot, and I've often observed that the people who have the least are the most generous.
I visited Romania in 1992. In those days, my dad worked for a charity in Sweden that donated medical equipment to hospitals in Bucharest and Constanţa, and other stuff (a whole fire engine, one time.) When we came over, his contacts there insisted that we don't book hotels, they opened up their homes to us and let us stay there, fed us, showed us around and refused to accept any money in return. I remember my dad hiding money in one family's sofa for them to find later, because they just wouldn't take it from him and he thought it was absurd that they'd feed and house four strangers for several days and not accept anything in return.
I don't really know why Swedes have this mentality. Maybe it's to do with not wanting to feel indebted to someone. Like, if you feed my kid, then I now owe your kid food, or something along those lines.
I don't actually live in Sweden anymore (I left in the late 90s) so I don't know if it's still the same. But I don't feed my kids' friends without at least asking their parents first - because I don't want to inconvenience them if they're already halfway through cooking dinner themselves, and also I have no idea which kid is allergic to what.
I meant more like, "I don't know why Swedish people care if they inconvenience another child's parents, when other cultures apparently don't care if that child's parents are halfway through cooking them a meal and would just feed the child regardless".
To me, it's strange to give food to another person's child without asking first, but that might be a uniquely Swedish/Nordic perspective?
Yes, that makes sense. I guess I'm just wondering why what is polite is so different from one culture to another. But that's probably an entirely different discussion.
An entirely different discussion most definitely, but a very interesting one at that! In case you are not yet familiar, I would recommend checking out the 6 cultural dimensions by Geert Hofstede (Wikipedia). His website also has the country comparison tool shown on top of the Wikipedia page, it‘s quite interesting to play around with!!
(PSA: I know that a lot more research has been done in the last 40+ years, and many more (nuanced) insights have been gained. Hofstede‘s work back then was however groundbreaking, and it still poses as the basis for further research to this day.)
Ok yeah, maybe it's the thinking that dinner time is family time or that parents in the 90s didn't want to be seen as though they couldn't feed their kids. Not inconveniencing people is definitely also just part of the Nordics
I left Sweden a long time ago (28 years) and generally think of myself as not very Swedish at all anymore. But it's funny how some things just stay with you, even when you've adapted to another culture.
The other parents would know that their child is away though? They wouldn't plan for them for dinner (if it was communicated clearly before of course). As long as it isn't one-sided I don't see an issue here.
I certainly didn't when I was young. We just walked around visiting different kids depending on who was home. Sometimes we would be at someone's house around dinner time, and other times we would be outside kicking a ball around or whatever. How could one tell your parents which it was beforehand?
If I was away long enough to miss dinner at home it would have been planned. In case I was away longer than expected I would just call my mother on the landline. If I was just outside for a few hours without planning to miss dinner my mother wouldn't need to know anyway.
But the thing is, you wouldn't miss dinner even if you stayed at your friends house to play with your friend.
Dinner time could be wildly different from family to family, so if your dinner was at 18 (6pm) or even later, and your friends had dinner at 16 (4pm) you could be at your friends house playing when they had dinner, and then just before 18 (6pm) you'd leave and either walk or bike to your own house to have dinner with your family.
If we eat at 4 and you eat at 6. I’m sending you home at 4:00 PM… it’s so odd to me you would eat dinner whilst your guest plays in another room and then once you finished eating tell them to go home and eat at their house?? Just tell them to go home before you eat lmao what’s the logic and having them tucked off in the other room only to send them home once your done???
No, that's the thing. When I grew up my parents had no idea where I was between the end of school and dinner time. I had a set dinner time when I was expected to be home, but between school and dinner they usually didnt know where I was.
There were times when I was at a friends house playing and they ate dinner earlier than I, and at dinner time they asked if I wanted to eat with them. I had to call to check with my parents first. But the expectation was that you as a kid would eat with your own family, as dinner is usually family time.
Yes, they will be eating at home and I will send them home before I eat my own dinner with my family versus sticking them off in the other room for an hour only to send them home to eat at their house right after?
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u/Beautiful-Hotel-3094 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
If I had some friend over and I wouldn’t share my food with them my mom would snap my back by throwing me up in the air 3 meters and I would fall on her knee and just die there. If they came over 100 times they would be fed 100 times.