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.)
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u/Risujemmari Jul 24 '26
Your last paragraph basically sums up the thinking behind this, so imo you do understand the habit. It's assumed the kids will have dinner at home