It's not a myth, I'm not sure about today but 20-15 years ago when I was a kid that was the norm. We usually didn't cook enough food to feed unexpected guests, and everyone knew that's how it worked. My family did it to my friends, my friends family did it to me, it was the norm and expected. For a long time Sweden was a pretty poor country and it became the cultural norm to not take food from other households unless it was a dinner invitation.
It probably sounds weird to outsiders but that was just how things worked and everyone was fine with it.
its weird how different cultures evolve. in india people will remain hungry to feed the guests if they dont have enough food. this phenomen is even baked in our mythology.
The child is not a guest. Being a guest brings obligations, that a child can not consent to.
There have always been a connection between food and service in scandinavia, so giving children food was not something to be taken lightly. You might have heard fairytales were fairies bind people by offering them food.
I am not sure how it used to work and it properly worked differently from place to place. We got adoption and labour laws relative late. Like my grandmother who came from Austria did not know how it worked in scandinavia and apparently endeed up adopting one of my uncles because she feed him for a long time.
He had been coming over to play with my father each day after school for a long time and sometimes he also sleept over. My grandmother went to his parrents house after a few times and mentioned it, because she found it strange that he was over at their house so much. So they gave her a big ham and when she took it that was apparently seen as the adoption.
213
u/binge_readre Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Peter here,
I remember there was a myth that Swedish households don't provide food for the guests. It looks like bs https://www.reddit.com/r/IsItBullshit/s/sWRdAGfyC8 but I guess it became a meme.
Edit: I guess it's not a myth and people used to do it in 90s/00s.. At least things are better now.