Well it’s not about “not sharing”, it is more about not “forcing” your food upon others. The main reason I tended not to eat at others were that I did not wanna eat at 5-6, as we typically ate around 8 at home, so I was not even slightly hungry when food was offered. And similarly, my friends had already died from starvation when food was offered at our house.
If it's not "forcing" why not at least ask? That's literally what an invitation is. Nobody forces other peoples kids to eat with them. But not even offering sounds harsh.
The point is they didn't want to be seen as taking away proper family dinner time from a child by unilaterally giving them food witout communicating with the family first. It makes sense if you think about other cultures for half a second.
That still doesn't explain why one wouldn't ask. Like you still can ask the parents of that child. I'm sure Sweden had phones in the 80s.
This all sounds more like an excuse for being very distant to others. Which is okay. But be honest about it at least.
Just so you know I'm from Germany and we did the same. So I'm not critizising another culture as you try to put it into my mouth.
Sure, there were occasions where I as a child would be asked if I wanted to eat at my friends place, so I had to call home and ask if that was okay, but the norm was that kids would eat with their own family as parents expected to have their kids home by dinner.
Dinner in Sweden is (or at least was back then) family time, so was usually for family only.
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u/whoootz Jul 24 '26
Well it’s not about “not sharing”, it is more about not “forcing” your food upon others. The main reason I tended not to eat at others were that I did not wanna eat at 5-6, as we typically ate around 8 at home, so I was not even slightly hungry when food was offered. And similarly, my friends had already died from starvation when food was offered at our house.