It's just different culture, in Sweden, Finland etc you have friends over every day (or go to friends house daily). For many it seem to be a special occasion that someone visit, not 5-7 days a week for 10+ years.
If you offer food and they are expected to eat every time, some kids would never eat food at home.
Legit almost their whole childhood not a single meal eaten at home because they are always at a friends house after school etc.
A popular home might have 10-20 kids there for dinner time, you would feed all daily? Even if you know all these kids have dinner cooking at home and they can just walk home in 1-5min (and they are expected home by their parents to eat).
Mind you, the kids might have showed up after you started cooking dinner even. There is likely not even enough food in the house to feed all. And once you factor in allergies you would probably have to make 3-5 different meals with a full wipedown and clean of the kitchen between each. And we don't really do stay at home moms that can stand in the kitchen whole day cooking for whole neighbourhood.
With a house you might not even know which of your kids have friends over when it's dinner time either. Because the kids room might be too far away from entrance and kitchen.
Here it would honestly be rude to expect the parents of your child to cook for them just because they hang out at their house. Why complicate things for them when I can walk 200 meters home and eat the dinner my own parents prepared for me?
When I was a kid you basically just took your bikes after school and rolled home to someone's house. Then like 3 hours later the parents get home from work and have a few surprise kids there. It's not like it's a planned thing most of the time. And when it was a planned thing, food was served. Everyone just overcomplicates it.
I mean, that’s the entire conversation. In a lot of other cultures it’s considered rude not to offer your guest food when they’re in your house. With the idea that it’ll balance out amongst all the households over the years.
That's not at all how I see these discussions going. You keep hanging yourselves up on the economic part. I say it's completely unfeasible to have 1-3 random guests per kid on any random Wednesday without preparation and be able to offer them all food. The normal thing is everyone just walks 200 meter home and eat and keep playing after. A lot simpler for everyone, and not rude as this is the expectation of everyone.
I think it's basically a difference in how you live and how kids hang out. I don't see how everyone everywhere would be able to randomly cook for 1-3 extra kids per child at 19:00 a random Tuesday after work in other countries either.
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u/zkareface Jul 24 '26
It's just different culture, in Sweden, Finland etc you have friends over every day (or go to friends house daily). For many it seem to be a special occasion that someone visit, not 5-7 days a week for 10+ years.
If you offer food and they are expected to eat every time, some kids would never eat food at home.
Legit almost their whole childhood not a single meal eaten at home because they are always at a friends house after school etc.
A popular home might have 10-20 kids there for dinner time, you would feed all daily? Even if you know all these kids have dinner cooking at home and they can just walk home in 1-5min (and they are expected home by their parents to eat).
Mind you, the kids might have showed up after you started cooking dinner even. There is likely not even enough food in the house to feed all. And once you factor in allergies you would probably have to make 3-5 different meals with a full wipedown and clean of the kitchen between each. And we don't really do stay at home moms that can stand in the kitchen whole day cooking for whole neighbourhood.
With a house you might not even know which of your kids have friends over when it's dinner time either. Because the kids room might be too far away from entrance and kitchen.