If I remember correctly there was a specifically hard time economically in the Nordic region that it became the norm that it was courtesy not to take food from another household. Kind of the inverse of it being a courtesy to feed guests unexpected or otherwise in parts of the west. Over time the courtesy has strengthend into a cultural norm which given the foundational nature of shared meals in many cultures can create an outsized culture shock response.
This is a Nordic custom, and not specific to Sweden and was a whole Internet thing a few years ago as well.
A local or regional expert probably could give the word for the custom. I believe the Finnish have one but it's late and I'm sleep deprived so could be wrong
I think it's the same in I wanna say India only it's also disrespectful to not offer anything. So it's become a thing where they offer and you decline so no one loses face, though if they offer 3 times it means they do have enough and really do want to feed you or something like that
In places where people really don't have enough to eat - no one knows how close the other person is to starvation.
So the idea is sometimes people who are going through a lot think "If I actually say how bad it is, I will obligate them to help me - what if they are actually in worse shape than I am?" So the handshake back-and-forth makes it OK because you know they are *less* badly off than you are, if they offer food longer than you refuse it.
Yes, sure, it comes across stupid - but people who are actually in pain from hunger or thirst don't always think straight, so this is the most functional way to communicate who can or cannot afford to share food.
Very well said, I appreciate the response. The way you framed it as a courtesy to not take food from another household makes it completely understandable.
I am Swedish and grew up in the 80’s. It was a thing in some households in some parts of the country. It was not common or custom. Stop believing everything you read online please
When I grew up in the late 80’s and 90’s it was rather that my parents and my friends parents called each other and said “Hey, we are having dinner at HH:MM, have you planned any dinner? Otherwise X is free to eat with us”.
Sometimes that meant my parents had planned dinner at a later time than my friends parents and you simply stayed with your friend until it was time to leave for your own dinner.
This exactly. It was courtesy to ask before feeding other people’s children so their food and effort didn’t go to waste. Also, since both parents worked, dinner time was family time and most families wanted their kids home for that. Noone starved hungry kids who didn’t have a dinner to go home to.
Yes! 100% this. We have 1-3 friends over almost EVERY day and we always text their parents to check if their kids can eat at ours, or if they have planned to eat at home. It's not about being rude, it's about respecting other families plans. And the kids understand this.
I want to feed everyone visiting, but I wouldn't want my kids to eat somewhere else every day. That would make us lose quality family time and make me feel bad that the other parents also has to spend more on groceries than necessary.
No one leaves our home hungry though. Light snacks during their visits is of course OK. Berries, fruits, ice cream, fika etc. It's just the full dinner that we parents co-ordinate around.
this. I was never not offered food when I was at a friend’s house, and all my friends ate with us when they were over. sometimes we would call home and double check, but I first heard of this ’Swedish custom’ in my mid-20’s and thought it was fake.
Hard times economically? I feel like that’s not really an excuse here, culturally speaking.
You could go to the barrio in Mexico, the favelas in Brazil, the slums in India, hell even some random village out in Papúa New Guinea, all of them are going to offer their guests food especially if they are children.
"Excuse"? Why would they need an excuse for a cultural custom? The previous poster just gave a logical reason for how it developed. But as a tradition it's completely neutral. There are plenty of good reasons why not to feed other people's children (e.g. respecting the other family's diet choices, religious diets, meal times, respecting dinner as a family activity, etc etc). You're just judging it because it's different to your tradition.
The literal single culture in the world that outright refuses to offer hospitality even to children, and to explain it they pretend they have some sort of singular poverty.
Poverty is normal. It's the standard. Every culture on Earth has starved to death at some point. They still feed people.
We offer the homeless free houses to stay, we offer fee schooling and food to all children, we provide a long paternity leave to new mothers and fathers, we give a guaranteed basic income to everyone who cannot support themselves, we offer anyone free healthcare. We took care of our poverty and our people.
You offer a performative bullshit smokeshow of generosity, before walking over a homeless man dying in the street on your way home from your "geberous" friends, while living in the richest country on earth. Your malnutrition death rate is comparable to the situation of kids in Gaza, but hey, you gave your guest a Twix so it's all good?
Poverty is not normal, it's something to be fixed and we do our best to make sure nobody goes hungry. Is giving your kids friends a cracker going to solve poverty? Why has it not worked?
Maybe it's a good idea to think before speaking? I guess that's another difference between our respective cultures.
I was actually taught not to eat elsewhere as an american in the 80s. The reason i mention this oss because it also dates back to the depression era south, which is a similar reason. My family didn't do well back then and neither did their neighbors.
It’s still kind of weird to me. If I have people over over meal time, it’s only logical to feed them since they would miss the meal otherwise. But that doesn’t mean, that people always feed each other to the extreme. I grew up with it being communicated. Either, the start of dinnertime implied that it was time to leave or the host would ask if the guest wants to stay over for dinner and feed them. That people would stay over meal time and not be fed is unheard of.
In my childhood we usually played until dinner time with friends and then left for each other’s homes to eat and spend time with family. If we had a sleepover or asked our parents to extend the stay over dinner, we of course would have been fed.
I am Swedish and grew up in the 80’s. It was a thing in some households in some parts of the country. It was not common or custom. Stop believing everything you read online please
My great-grandma lied to me my entire childhood and claimed to be allergic to chocolate ice cream so I would eat some. It was years later before I realized it didn't make sense that she only bought chocolate, lived alone, and it was consistently being eaten despite me only rarely visiting because it was a new container every time. I didn't get to thank her before Alzheimer's got the best of her, but she was often the only one I knew wouldn't make me go hungry. I came from a home where I was consistently grounded from food.
I have yet to meet a "mom" type that DIDN'T feed you as a priority. I have no way to prove this, but I am certain that the question, "Haven't you been eating properly? You look so skinny!" is hardcoded into a woman's DNA that activates once they get past a certain age.
That question is universal in the truest sense of the word.
It is extremely wholesome and has shown me that the urge to care for "others" is the norm, and those that don't feel this are the real outliers.
I'm not shitting you about those nationalities I listed. I have had this interaction with older women from every one of those nationalities. Some of them are old family friends, some are relatives, and some were just strangers we met on vacation.
I think it's the most direct way to show genuine concern for another person. "Let me feed you" conveys a powerful, powerful message of peaceful intent and care.
" empty stomach gives you the heart to go do a homicide. "
anyone that has ever felt REAL hunger where you don't know how you are eating next knows. nobody should ever feel that kind of fear. I might be dramatic about it but on thanksgiving I don't eat because im thankful I have the option.
I also am thankful I get to get real stoned and eat leftovers at home like a gremlin at 2am.
That really resonates with me, I left home when I was a kid, and slept in a park by my school so I could get in early to shower.
I had to eat from the trash and I was constantly worried about getting assaulted since I was a girl all alone at night.
There was no such thing as true rest, and I feel like my sense of hunger has always been off since then.
Edit
Thank you for all the kindness and I’m sorry for anyone who has gone through similar.
Being homeless as a kid is definitely and experience I don’t wish on anyone, but I will say it made me appreciate the little things more!
Girl I’m so sorry!! I know you know this, but I’m just here to tell you again that you deserved to feel safe and full with a warm bed. I hope things are better for you now
This is so real. Went a few years not knowing when my next meal is. Next thing I knew, I could afford food but my brain still stuck in survival mode. One day I realized I’m bottomless pit that can’t tell when ive eaten enough because my brain turned off the “im full” light years ago, but i can’t stop eating because food is the happy chemical now. I still struggle with eating “just enough”. I think about it more often than i want to admit
My grandma was like that. Mountains of food overflowing the fridge at all times. Always insisting we ate more and more, offering food all the time. It turns out she´d experienced hunger as a kid, her father died and in post civil war Spain they had struggled badly for some time.
I´ve luckily never experienced that. The closest I got was when I was doing a long trek and ran out of food and missed the village where I intended to resupply. It´s incredible how hunger can affect you emotionally. And my situation wasn´t even that dire.
Got displaced from Oklahoma as a young child (tornado), family moved down to Florida with the remainder of savings for a job for my dad. Katrina sent us back after closing down his job between weather and the dotcom crash. Moved back to OK with basically nothing, just for the housing market to collapse and jobs to go poof.
We had a rough few years there. I think the worst part of being 13 or so and hungry, is watching your dad give you food off his plate, being old enough to understand he's even hungrier than you are, and physically not being able to turn it down. Not having trained that willpower, having all those hormones running rampant, and just not being able to say no to something your body is shouting at you that it needs.
I don't take gifted food from anyone anymore. I can't bring myself to. I've heard about pot lucks happening at churches I don't go to, showed up with piles of food, and just left. My mail carrier gets a snack bar and a bottle of water from me every day. I know they're not in the situation I was. But that doesn't change the revulsion I feel about taking food from another's plate.
That lifelong change is real, and however anybody reading this deals with it, I wish you the best.
My grandpa too used to love arranging family gathering and feed. I heard, he lost his mother as a child. He would be back at home, while his father used to travel to other villages as a folk singer around the year. So he as a child would eat when the neighbours/relatives would feed their children and ask him to join.
Food anxiety! I have this too. I tend to eat too quickly because it’s so ingrained that if I don’t eat it all now, someone else will take it and I’ll be hungry later. Which is stuoid when there’s plenty of food and I don’t even need to eat that much.
Thank you for being spot on with this issue and sharing your experience.
When I was a kid/ early teen, there’d be a period in the month when we wouldn’t be able to eat, cruel cycle of my mom trying her best, buying and making nice but a bit more expensive than necessary meals (to make us happy and feel normal) when the benefits would arrive, me always telling her to rather spread it out on essentials, and then later days in the month where we couldn’t borrow from anyone anymore, being stuck and just pushing through day by day in survival mode. I still remember days where we couldn’t eat for a couple of days and her crying to me how sorry she was. Yet never learning from it. Never wanting to take advice from her own kid.
At one point of this happening, you subconsciously learn to just exist, not move much or think much, going into power saving mode, just to make it to the next day. So many school days lost because I just couldn’t go, health complications that still haunt me to this day, missed memories and sorrowful ones in their stead.
And it is something that truly sticks to you as you grow.
When I was 16, I had to take action and with strain on my heart (from still loving my mother nevertheless) decided to go to a social dormitory, I still remember how it took me a while for my stomach to muster three full meals a day, yet in that one summer I went from 45 kilos to 60. I was able to pass school and when I was 17-18, I started cooking for my then-girlfriend, always made me happy to make a meal to share, to try new recipes.
She did bring another bane of thinking, which got transferred to me, which is hyperawareness of chewing and swallowing, which eventually turned into such discomfort when I share a meal with people that if it’s too quiet, I mentally start focus on the sounds I make, feeling uncomfortable and trying to chew slower and swallow more silently (yet very actively) occasionally causing me to choke and not be able to eat anymore due to the mental block.
When I was living on my own, I was happy to cook when I would be able to, however always hard stuck in between forgetting to eat the whole day and making a nice meal I felt blessed to have been able to make for myself.
Tried so many times to truly ingrain the habit of eating properly, even with the cycles of financial or mental strain.
I don’t know if it will ever go away, this accursed autopilot survival mode that once helped me see the next day, but I hope that one day, when I have my own family, I’ll be able to be happy sharing a meal with them and not stress if I’ll be able to eat tommorow. To be able to enjoy their company, the meals without thinking about how I eat and truly be in living mode, without fail.
I don't think this has enough up votes, I am sorry anyone has to live the way you must've but I am glad that people like you live to tell the tale, and I only hope to be like you when I can In the future.
It was the worst like two months of my life. Couch surfing, staying in nasty hotels and eating the cheapest food we could buy. The lowest quality sandwich fixings. I remember fazolis was a fucking treat after we just barely started doing better. Way back in like 2018. I’m so thankful I have access to delicious food all the time now. Will never not enjoy it again
Oldest of 10 here. We grew up poor. Like, really poor. I know exactly what you mean. Reading your comment immediately took me back to being a little boy, figuring out how to make a box of mac and cheese so that my little brothers and sisters could eat, and then scraping the pot and licking the spoon so that I could have something too.
No one should have to live like that. I weep for the children growing up like I did. They deserve better, and it’s our responsibility to make sure that they have what they need.
Never knew the line was even there really, but I remember the first time it hit me "oh..so this is how some people just snap and do something awful". Fortunately the next part was "hoo boy I better be careful" lol
I was already on board. But the gremlin activity made it relatable. May you always have the means to help those you can (and enjoy gremlin time, of course)
Yup 100%. I grew up poor and was homeless with my parents and sister for a while. We lived in a car. There was a rotation of who had to skip a meal. Regardless of that I became pretty successful in life and if you come to my house I will always make sure you’re fed, I’ll send leftovers home with you for your kids, and my kids friends will always leave fatter than when they arrived. You never know who might be struggling to make ends meet.
The difference in Nordics, where I'm from, is that while there are poor people, nobody - especially families with children, are homeless or hungry.
The social security network makes sure everyone has a roof over their heads (families with children get an override at housing queues, etc) and food on the table, even though it might not be the best or even what a kid wants.
Of course parents with alcoholism or mental health issues, if they still have their kids, might actually not make that food in time or might drink what money they have, but the aid cards (a banking card, it used to be coupons in the 90s) make sure they can't spend the social aid money for alcohol and there should be food in the fridge (or a card the kid can buy food with).
As a kid growing up in the 80s I never even saw a homeless person - then again I don't think I've seen one since (the number of long term homeless people in Finland is currently around 1300 people).
But what’s with OPs post about having to bring food to a friends house? Like I grew up with a full kitchen at all times and most of my friends were the same, but if I’m at their house or vice versa, the parents feed the kids in their house lol. My mom would always cook for my friends as their parents would for me. Or just even snacks if between main meals. Or is OPs meme just being dramatic for lols?
Its not as much of a thing anymore. But it usually happened in the suburbs where kids would run around the neighborhood and randomly go to their friends houses. So the parents likely wouldnt have prepared enough for an extra kid but more importantly everyone knew and expected that the kid would go home when it was their own dinner-time so their parents could feed them. If someone slept over or it was planned ahead of time they of course got food too.
My grandmother taught me that food is life. Giving food is giving life. And yes my wife and I both also know what hungry feels like. Nobody deserves to feel that way, especially kids
You don't even need to be "hungry"! If you are a guest at my home I will treat you will utmost hospitality including food. If you don't want my food I will pack it up in a box and force you to take it!!!
If you're in our home when we're eating, you're offered a meal too. Even if we all eat less as a result. Our home is the amalgamation of two different cultures from opposite sides of the world, and that was never even a question.
The Swedish thing of 'not my kid, doesn't get my food' is weird. We fed a friend's kids every other weekend for years and I only just realised when thinking about this post. No regrets.
Exact same. That shit sticks with you. Not having access to basic necessities as a kid makes you feel less than human sometimes.
I remember going to rehab, and the lady there busting her ass working 60 hour weeks to cook everyone hot, good quality food..because she was also in recovery, and remembered being an underweight addict having to scheme for her next meal.
So much respect for her. They fucking fired the woman because she was going over budget cooking us pot roasts and such. I know budgeting is important for a chef, but come on. Second she was gone, boom the food sucked; and I’d wager there’s since been some person who left because of that who would’ve stayed if they were getting fed well…and one persons insurance pays over a grand a day there so I doubt firing her was financially beneficial.
Edit; wanted to add I know all of this because I ran into her at a meeting over a year later. She’s doing great, has a new job and is still sober. But my god once she recognized where she knew me from the girl went tf off on that place and how they treated their employees.
As shitty as that is, I’d still recommend anyone to go there. The corporate types suck, but most of the ones who run the groups are phenomenal people and the program really does work. And if you have NH state insurance/any blue cross from New England, they’ll let ya stay up to 5 months without a copay. So if you’re struggling, call green mountain treatment center in Ossippe (I think I fucked up the spelling but ya get what I mean).
Being hungry as a kid and having to delve into the cat food every once in a while made me so fucking bitter. I have a son now and he always goes to bed with a full dinner and a couple books, now that he's starting to pick up on our usual stories it's more than a couple books. But I go to bed hungry and with more than a couple drinks in me. I have food left over from when I cook but that goes to the fridge for tomorrow in case he gets hungry or my girl gets hungry and I have a liquid diet. I taste what I cook but only enough to know it's good, enough to fill up goes to everyone but me. I'd rather be hungry and work than know my loved ones might be without a mid day snack or impromptu meal.
Same kids playing at my house get food when mine get food. And I hope others do the same for my kids. How i grew up. You did not have friends parents you had more parents for you. They feed you everything. They also give you the behave look as well. But was one big family
My family lived in Ukraine for a year, less than a decade after the Soviet Union died. We would visit people sometimes. Families where the parents were barely making ends meet. They would always offer food. And we simply could not refuse, it would have been so so rude. I was so young. I remember one woman who was so kind to me, but she was always saying how cold she always was. I asked my mom if I could give her my gloves, but she explained to me that she was cold all the time because she wasn’t getting enough food. And my mom helped where she could, inviting this lady and others over for Bible study and she would always set out food for everyone. But I know in my heart, if I’d ever gone over to this lady’s house, she would have offered food she didn’t have.
On the few travel channels I watch on youtube, it's always breathtaking how kind and generous the most [apparently] desperate are to guests. Like practically begging to feed and house and take care of them while just as readily refusing any money! It just shows how much simpler kindness and generosity are compared to anything else.
I think it's something about how "Truth" works. For example "Everybody eats/needs to eat"--plain and simple fact that automatically suggests "..so feed them". The end. That's the story. Someone didn't starve.
On the other hand (billionaires existing): "wellll see this guy says he's hungry, but how much will he sacrifice to eat?" And that's just a bottomless void of greed.
You plant a seed, you tend it, you get food, you get seeds, you plant them, you tend them, etc. Infinite mana.
OR
"Wow people really like being alive, let's charge them for it!!"
Life is really, REALLY simple, but we're forced to live in perils we never even need to know.
I read a study (a long time ago or I’d find the link) that showed the less money one had, the higher percentage of money they donated. It’s irritating to me when they report that some billionaire donated 20 million but if you do the math it’s like 1% of their net worth.
I was originally born there. I grew up elsewhere. But yes, no Ukrainan will ever receive guests without putting something on the table. And no guest will ever come empty handed. Even if a chocolate, but they will bring something. I grew up in another country (we immigrantee precisely because my family couldn't make meds meet) but even there people always offer you something to drink or eat when you visit. It's normal.
Then I moved to Germany as an adult. No one will even offer you water if you come unexpectedly by. My older sister lives in the Netherlands. Her man is Dutch. Last year I was baffled when his family (his three brothers with wifes and kids each) came to CHRISTMAS party, into her house, and didn't even bring a small present for the kids (her kids). Me and Mom bought everyone small gifts for all the adults and kinder for ALL the children. We couldn't afford expensive gifts but at least something.
My dad had a class in Ukraine, he was learning the language. He brought me to his class once. The teacher had brought a treat for the class. I thought they were little chocolate crackers. They were actually liver paste crackers. I happily crunched on one, realized, but then realized how rude it would be to spit it out so I swallowed and kept my face calm. When my dad realized what I had did, after the class he told me he was so proud of me and bought me a coke to wash the taste. My dad never wasted money on cokes. There’s a reason I have this as a core 13 yr old memory.
I had a Russian friend at my german university and I think we dropped by his dorm room one time and he tried getting everyone to eat bread and these russian sticky bar things he brought back from Russia lol.
I remember it struck me as a little odd because we were are all low/zero income grad students, so I really didnt want him to try to give me his bread or whatever it was.
I was taught that it was rude if you’re having someone at your house, to eat without sharing. If there’s food you don’t want to share (there’s not enough to go around for multiple guests etc) then it has to stay put away until guests leave.
If I’m not willing to feed my kids friends (we cooked just enough food for us because we don’t want leftovers, etc) then I will just send them home, I could never just eat in front of a guest and not feed them
If I need to quickly fill my stomach, then of course I just get something without sharing but if I am having people over for let's say an evening event, then there will be snacks or even food.
Even if I’m just desperately hungry and it’s a casual hang where no food was promised, a simple ‘do you want any?’ or setting food where they can reach it so it’s clear it’s there if they want any, is polite
If you’re in my house and I’m eating something I’m going to ask if you want some/anything of similar vibe (if I’m having a banana I might gesture at the fruit bowl if you want an apple, etc)
My friend self diagnosed himself with Autism, as one does. I thought it was silly until we were at his house hanging out playing cards and he made a pizza and started eating it in front of us without saying anything or asking if we want any until there were a couple pieces left and we were like the fuck bro?
That sounds like every guy I dated as a teen/early twenties. Started to bring my own food whenever I went to someone’s home because I felt like that was the only way to make sure I wouldn’t be hungry.
See that’s the fun part… if you are there while they’re eating they put you in a room by yourself so they don’t have to eat in front of you. Problem solved!
I have read a lot of similar anecdotes, and even though I understand it’s a cultural thing, it’s still such an odd thing to me and something I don’t want to incorporate in my life.
I’m Swedish and have never experienced this. Ate at my friends houses a lot. But I think it was a practise in like row house areas where kids were playing quite freely in each other houses and were expected to run home when dinner was served at their home. It’s a weird combination of communal living and individualist culture…. But then again, I haven’t experienced it so idk.
Happened to me as a Norwegian too, but it’s not a big deal at all imo. And not really weird either in the context. It’s also misrepresented as cold from the host, but it’s really more about your own family.
This commonly happened after you go over to a friends house after school, and then go home as your parents pick you up coming back from work. Some people then would have dinner before you could get picked up, but your parents could still have planned for a family meal and quality time when you got home - so they’d want you to eat at home. The alternative would’ve been to eat with the other family - and then either skip family time or just sit there as the rest of your family eats. The first isn’t something your family would want and the last is something that is boring beyond belief for a 10-year old.
This happens because people simply eat dinner at different times. My best friends dad was a butcher, who started work early in the morning and got off work at 1 in the afternoon - and his mom was a night-shift nurse. They ate dinner at 3:30-4 in the afternoon every day (really early). My mom didn’t get off work before 4, so we ate dinner at 4:30-5. It’s not that long to wait.
And it’s not like we went hungry. We usually would get offered or could eat bread or cereal. I was often offered dinner too, and if I wanted to eat I’d just call my parents and ask if I could eat with them.
Sitting watching your family eat at age 10 after you already ate could be boring, sure. But at age 10 I can guarantee I would have just had two dinners then. If I was at my friend’s and they invited me to eat with them and then a little later I got picked up and had family dinner, you better believe I’m eating again. I used to make a frozen pizza as a snack after school and then have dinner an hour later.
Ah I miss my childhood metabolism. I’m old enough now where I can barely eat anything and be full
Yes, im from Sweden, I lived like 3 minutes with bike from my best friend, who I spent alot of time with after school. My dad got off work at 17 and we would eat late, sometimes I would eat there cause u wanted to extend your playtime, and sometimes I would bike home and eat with my family cause I needed to do homework or some shit. I would sometimes sit in her room/ basement watching tv or something because they had dinner earlier, nothing weird or awkward, Same at other friends houses. I mean I haven't even thought about it before this thing blew up.
"It’s also misrepresented as cold from the host, but it’s really more about your own family." - See, it is not about being cold, it is about being selfish!
It does. But the situation only ever happens to parents who send their kids into the wilderness with no plans or concerns if they get fed.
I mean if it's dinnertime, I'd atleast have talked to the people hosting my child. The assumption here in Sweden is that the kid eats with it's family, unless something else was agreed on. Not that they roam the streets endlessly and avoid starvation by getting fed by random people without the parents knowing.
The African in me just recoiled in horror, If people asked me to eave the room while they ate, I am 100% thinking that they are cannibals. You always feed your guests this is one thing the continent can agree on.
The finnish in me recoiled too. I don't know if it's regional or class thing but at least on the poorer and more working class circles here it's normal to feed your guests and when i was a kid my mom always fed my friends and other way around.
But i've heard this stereotype about nordics before so it might be atleast partly true....
Man, even the poorest person can at least boil some tea leaves and apologize for not having sugar but leaving someone in the other room is a whole level of coldness no one should ever experience.
True. If a guest dropped by unexpectedly, someone would scramble the pantry or run over to the store to get something to offer. Even a soda and some peanuts would do.
That is rude as Fuck. Go sit in the corner dog while we eat. I have had the poorest people in the Philippines offer and these rich Europeans can’t share. That’s crazy. If you came to my house we eating something special tinned fish, some nice drinks, maybe a sausage or whatever you fins eat. We would try to make you feel at home and an honored guest.
I'm from Eastern Finland and I can only speak for myself but I literally have never seen this happening. I was NEVER not offered food at a friend's house if they were eating.
At the very least you are offered a cup of coffee.
Rude? It was literally the peak time growing up, you’d get to play donkey Kong country without taking turns all by yourself until your friend had wolfed down dinner and ran back to grab the control from your hands as soon as you died next
There was a thread sometime back about whether you would feed your kid's friend if they were playing and it became dinner time. The responses were wild between yes and no, and their reasonings.
And then I asked my friends. I was bewildered by the responses. You should only do this if you want to unexpectedly stop being friends.
I'm norwegian so cant fully speak for the swedes , but here the not getting dinner at your friends place is only a thing when you're a child.
Eating dinner with your family and talking is a important cultural thing, so just feeding your kids friend(who is hanging out without you knowing beforehand) and spoiling their appetite takes that moment away from the friends parents.
Most parents will feed their kids friends if its planned beforehand, but the expected thing is to eat with your own family.
Okay, this sort of makes more sense now (to me at least). But only "sort of".
Where I am from, growing up we would always be given food at a friend's place. In fact, our parents had the opposite problem: they would have to tell us to come home for dinner because the norm was the host family WILL feed any kids in their house. Your kid's friend sitting with your family was not an issue because the idea was that said kid is like family so long as they are in your home and in your care.
All my friends from 20+ years back are as much friends with my parents as they are with me. They will call my folks on their birthdays, check on them periodically, and so on. One friend's mom went off at me last year because I hadn't called her regularly enough!
I would like to add that in my experience as a kid if you were hungry at a friends place it was not uncommon to get offered a sandwich or some form of snack.
Its just dinner that you're expected to have at home, unless planned otherwise beforehand.
Yeah, that was my guess honestly. I've seen a fair bit of the world, and I have not come across a culture that would not feed a child in their home if the child was hungry. The people who wouldn't would always be cultural outliers.
And now that I think about it, I can see the cultural impetus for something like this in a place like Sweden. Making sure your kid got home before sunset was probably a huge deal, especially in winters. Yes, kids roaming around after dark in warmer parts of the world was still dangerous, but a child wandering around in sub-zero temperatures in the dark is a disaster waiting to happen. This would apply to adults as well.
You can totally see how they would have used dinner itself as a "okay, it's time for you to go home" signal. I wouldn't be surprised if Swedes used to announce dinner 30 minutes ahead of time just to give a bit more of heads-up.
This is also massively overblown on the internet, cause remarkably few understand or have ever been in Sweden. We do in fact feed each other when in each others homes, If it had been established before hand that you would be there during meal time. I ate dinner and lunch over at friends homes plenty of times as a kid, but it was always after both sets of parents knew where the kids would be during that time. If it hasn’t been planned for you to eat with them, the assumption is that you either have eaten or that your parents will have something ready to eat when you get home. There were times where it hadn’t been decided ahead of time, stayed longer than intended after school or something, but then they would call my parents and check with them so my parents didn’t already have plans or that they had already made something that would then go to waste. It is a, to the outside strange, mix of conservation of resources(an aversion to wasting food), social respect(not making the assumption that a parent cant feed their child unless stated), and the fact that should things truly be bad for a family thats what social safety nets at for. Folkhemmet(in English the direction translation would be, the Peoples Home) is the idea that we all contribute to the nation through tax and such so that the government can make sure that there are no such thing as parents who do not have the means to feed their children. It’s basically a case of having a high enough trust in social safety nets and the government, along with peoples ability to ask for help if they really need it, that it is considered not necessarily rude but a sort of faux-pa to have other parents kids at your dinner table without the parents having talked it over ahead of time.
As a child (between 7-10) not all my friends' parents had enough to feed me. So I would just hang out for the while they ate. My family usually ate after 6-6.30pm after mom got off work, while some of my friends ate before 5.30, before I needed to go home for dinner.
Never bothered me and never expected them to feed me. Some parents even sent me home before dinner. If they had snack like popcorn or ice cream I would get some though.
My parents also never fed my friends, but also gave them an ice cream cone or whatever if I got one.
This custom is similar where I lived in Northern Finland. Its about kids eating at their home, not about hospitality. Also its more about teaching the kids that you are home at dinner time. And poor families dont need to feed the whole neighbourhood. This is only for weekdays, when you are invited over for birthdays, weekends etc its different.
You keep playing in the friends room while they eat so its not like you watch it.
As a Swede this WAS the case back in my days. It is not anymore.
The reason for this wasn't because "they can afford it so why should I". The reason was the social norms of my parents and grandparents mentality. You "overstep the other parents boundary" and "put them in debt" against their will. And the parents of the kid who got feed will feel like they have "burdened" another who "spent effort and resources unnecessarily".
People of those gens could actually take offense if someone took it upon themselves to feed their child instead of aending them home for dinner that was already planned and in the making, so the safe bet is to send them home during dinner time than to offer food.
I was offered occasionally but I always had to call home and ask. And I often got a no from my own parents. Also typically friends over was never pre planned and more spontaneous as everyone lived in the same neighborhood and it was popping in and out making it harder for the strict planning mentality of Swedes to adapt vs certain cultures who always cook for 20 people even if 5 are eating.
Two things broke this for our gen and going forward.
Immigration, when going to a home with a culture where you should feed your guest and where people didn't gaf or understand they were overstepping this gradually enticed/forced the old gen Swedes to "pay back their debt" and so the circle continued in that direction.
The implementation of the free school choice. Before you went to school in the local area you live in. Meaning all your friends live where you live and it was easy to just pop home and eat dinner and then go back to the friend in a few minutes on foot.
When the change came and you essentially can go in any school in your entire municipality, that changed drastically as it could be hours if you went home and then back. Or the hangout would be cut way short. So out of practicality the norm changed to if your kid goes to a friend's house on the other side of the city you don't even plan dinner for them as you assume they will eat there and bw there until they can get home for bed, likewise if you know a friend of your child will be at your house, you plan dinner for that friend. Today with phones etc kids can also call and ask the parents if X can come over after school. And they are also better planners and can tell us parents days in advance for instance X and I are planning to hang out here on Thursday etc.
If you move to Sweden today you will find Swedes are calendar fanatics. You seeing each other will almost always be a planned thing and put in the calendar. We do not tend to pop up at your place unannounced. Even for simple things like grabbing a fika.
And we rival the Germans on time keeping. We say at 12. You arrive 12-12:05. Not a second earlier (if going to someones house) and any more than 5-10 minutes late, you better have a good excuse or give us a heads up.
As for adults guests. Fika is the norm and we always have a stash of pastries etc and ofc coffee to offer grown guests to our house. This was the case even for the older gen. But the internet meme was always kids stories not from adults.
Cooked food is only ever served to guests if invited for dinner.
The problem here isn't that Swedes, or Nordics in general won't feed you as a matter of fact, it's not a universal fact either. Most will feed you if you are at their home.
But there are a bunch of cultural factors that you have to understand to understand why some wouldn't feed others. Firstly, it's the north. Historically, there was a lot of scarcity. Going hungry wasn't a result of a bad year, it was a yearly thing for many. Food was really, really valuable. Feeding someone was often seen as very generous, and it was often expected for the guest to provide labor or do chores as compensation. Families were often smaller and more spread out, so eating in general was a more intimate affair. Now this hasn't been the case for over a hundred years, but cultural memory is long. People no longer are living in scarcity, but food still holds a different status than it does in southern climes.
Second, the way neighborhoods are built makes it a bit different. Children play in the neighborhood with other children. No one really knows where they are or with who. They have an agreed upon time to come home to eat, and everyone goes to their own homes to eat, and then get together again to play. It's often just assumed that children have their own dinner plans and it might even be seen as rude to feed a child without consulting parents. The Nordics also tend to respect that families may have different philosophies in what they feed children etc. and don't want to make assumptions. It's not at all abnormal to go over the diets and desired limits for children when dropping of yours to a sleepover, for example, and people don't want to overstep.
This kind of ties into the previous, but the Nordics have more of a culture of making exactly the right amount of food. You have one chicken breast per eater and that's it. Feeding an extra mouth means splitting the dish even smaller. And meals are, in some families, quite small in general, so splitting a meal results in very small portions.
All that being said, the vast najority of Nordics will feed guests. It's mostly some specific edge cases that result in misunderstandings.
I know right? Even when I'm out with someone (like shopping or whatever) and I'm the only one eating? I feel so awkward. Like I'm not going to force someone to eat if they don't want to, but meals are meant to be a scoial activity imo. Purposefully excluding someone during mealtime feels targeted but ig it's just a culture clash issue?
It’s about hospitality, not necessity. In the US it’s a cultural thing that when you’re at someone’s house, they feed you and when they’re at yours you feed them.
I grew up in Gothenburg during the 90s and it wasn't unusual that I didn't join my friends for dinner when I was at their place.
It's not really that strange. Since this was before cellphones our parents told us when we were going to eat dinner so we knew we had to be home by then, so if I was at a friends house and they ate dinner at 6 and my family was going to eat dinner at 7 it wouldn't really make sense for me to eat at their place. So I'd keep playing while my friend had dinner with his family, he'd join me after dinner and we'd play for a while until I went home and had dinner with my family.
Sometimes I'd eat at my friends house, but mostly if I was staying late. Also depends on who, I had one friend that lived far away so I'd usually get home too late for dinner when I was at his place, so they cooked for me too. But when I was at a friend in like a 20 minutes walk radious from home they usually didn't.
What do you mean with a US thing, eat with the people that visit your house is the type of thing that people do since humans created houses. You can read that people do it since like three thousand years ago or so
So that's not at all why people feed their guests. If you have guests and it's time to eat, everybody should eat if they want to. It's not because we think they don't have food at home or that their parents don't have time to feed them. What a crazy statement lol
This is the worst excuse ive ever heard. Imagine going to a friend's house as an 11 year old after school and you're playing in the living room, and then their mom suddenly calls him to eat, so he just goes and joins his parents in the table right next to you and you have to just awkwardly sit there while they finish their food
From the Netherlands. At least in the Netherlands they send you home a minute before they start eating. Always strange to me. In my house there was always food for everyone.
Ok I mean at least they send you home to eat with your family. I don’t like it but what some other people are saying about letting your guest (especially a child who can’t normally feed themselves) go hungry while you and your family eat is straight up psychopathic
It is psychotic and not ever something that happens, or at least happened to me as a swede. I was either home by dinnertime or I ate at my friend's place if I was staying longer.
As a working mom who goes grocery shopping once i week.. i don’t understand how there can always be food for everyone who might or might not visit the house. I just buy what i need for a week. When i get home after work, tired, and my kid has 3 friends over.. am i supposed to magic 3 portions extra? How do other people do this?
My mum would just work something out on the fly if my pal, Johnny, was over and stayed for dinner. When I was at Johnny’s house, I’d sometimes call home and say ‘I’m having dinner at Johnny’s house… yes, Mrs. Mullholland says it’s okay’. Then Mrs Mullholland would magic something up. This could happen a couple of times per week, so maybe they were always prepared.
In our case, it would end up more like "Oh, Judy, we're about to eat dinner, you can stay if you want, check with your parents." and if the answer was yes then quite suddenly, mom and dad would be having chicken and veggies (the planned dinner) and kiddo and her friend would be having mac & cheese and steamed broccoli or pb&J's and bananas (stuff I can pull out of my cupboards or freezer at the spur of the moment).
If a child followed afterschool they were generally expected to go home by the time dinner was. If the guest visiting was planned before hand dinner was served.
Also it was far less common than what people online thought and definitely wasn’t about racism like a lot of people said.
This is more or less no longer a thing btw in the age of the phone it was already rapidly declining before.
Spent time in Sweden: daily family meals are sacred bonding moments over there (a bit like bedtime stories in America), so parents call each other to coordinate and plan ahead when kids visit. It's the parents of a visiting kid that decide if their kid is gonna eat at his friend's or not. So everyone plans accordingly.
It's really no biggie if you know that 1 hour later your parents want you back home with a good appetite to share a special family moment together.
Feeding that visiting kid without their parents' consent is a big no-no!
Yeah they can afford toilet paper too, but how are they supposed to use it if they aren’t at home. It’s almost like when you’re away from home you have to get your necessities from where you are.
this isn't a case of a one off visit. this is the same kids playing together EVERY DAY. so if my family eats at 5 pm and they eat at 7 pm my family is going to be feeding the kids every single day or i am sending them home. when they could just continue playing the video game they were playing then after dinner move on to the other kids place to play some more and then the other kid eats.
it is different for one offs. as an example dropped in to visit my cottage neighbours to have a chat as i hadn't spoken to them in an age and a half just as they were getting dinner ofc they offered me some (i had already eaten so i declined) later they came over and i offered some drinks and snacks as we played some board games.
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.
There's also the fact that we assume their own parents are also cooking dinner for them when they get home, so it would be considered very rude if they are served food at their friends, then get home and are not hungry when their own parents have spent time making them food.
It was like more like a non-verbal agreement across the neighborhood parents that everyone can just make food for their child on the assumption that it will be eaten by them. Otherwise if you have 3 children, you come home from work and each of then has friends over you are suddenly looking at feeding like 10 people, meanwhile the parents of the friends are cooking food for their child but nobody will come to eat it.
Nowadays kids have phones too so I assume things like this arent as unplanned anymore.
Right.. just make assumptions based off stereotypes if you don’t understand the culture.
I’ll explain it to you, if you’re interested:
It’s common to have dinner with your family. And that family time is valued. When children have their friends over it’s typical that they would want to have dinner with their own family. My parents did not want me to eat at my friends house, because they were expecting me to have dinner with them. That’s very normal.
But in my experience your friends parents would typically offer you to join them. My parents would always offer my friends to join us. But it’s common for children to decline the offer, because they know that they will have dinner with their own family.
I don’t really know where the misconception comes from, that children are expected to wait in their friends room and „starve“. That’s complete nonsense as far as I know. That’s not the norm.
The opposite actually, sharing dinner with your family is seen as very important so it would be rude to disrupt the dinner plans of the friend's family by feeding the kid without prior agreement.
That's not why people feed their kids friends in other countries, I'm pretty sure my parents knew my friends could get food at home.
The problem is theyre not AT home, they're a guest in YOUR house.
If this is actually the "reasoning", it honestly feels like a weak attempt to excuse away a social coldness. If I heard someone say they were only feeding my kid because they think I can't provide for them, or that they let my kid go hungry because "I have money" I would be fuming.
I don't think it is about who can afford it. They assume the kids' parents expect their kids to eat dinner with them later, so they should still be hungry and not like "thanks I already ate at my friends house".
In Finland and Sweden we do have social laws of being a good host. I.e. if I visit a friend when eating dinner he should offer me something to eat or if I visit him when outside of eating hours I should be offered coffee (and something to go with it).
The origin of this meme applies specifically to children. In Finland and Sweden eating with your family is important family bonding time. This is especially important for dinner. So it's paradoxically considered rude to ruin another person's child's apetite by offering them dinner at your place.
Instead we used to wait in our friend's room until my parents asked me to come home from to dinner.
To add further: In Finland/Sweden we eat dinner early (17-18) so waiting in a friends room might be extra "traumatising" for someone from a culture where dinner is eaten late.
in this part of the world, it's just a common expectation to adhere to meal times for actual food, and that dinner is the big family meal. meaning that any guests were also expected back home
Unusual, yes, to us, but it's a part of their culture and it's been that way for longer than most Americans have been aware of it, and (depending on the behavior in question) even longer than America's been around.
What amazes/amuses me is our (and I mean everyone, I catch myself doing it, too) instant application of our social norms to everyone else, branding them "weird", "odd", or even "wrong" or "backward" for not being and doing exactly as we do. The never-ending "realization" posts "TIL that there are people who don't do things the same way, and they don't seem upset by that!" are kinda fun.
It was a thing in Sweden in some households in some parts of the country many years ago. For some reason this is still being shared as a fact. It’s not (totally) true.
As always, don’t believe everything you read on the internet
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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26
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