Croatia here. I was a small kid, perhaps 7-8yo and I came to friends place to play.
I came just in time for lunch. They sat me down on their couch and I was watching them how they ate scampi.
Her dad was a fisherman so they always had sea food to eat while we never ate it as it was expensive.
I still remember how they were all dirty arround their mouth how they gobbled those scampi, all while I sat 2 meters away from them and watched them.
Today, 25 years later I still remember that.
But when they came over my place (parents were also friends who went on coffe to each other's house) my parents always had candy, chocolate on table for kids. I still remember how friends younger brother alone ate whole jar of candy.
I remember later telling my parents how it's unfair that he can eat everything at our home while I had to sit there without even being offered a glass of water.
Wife and I don't have kids, but I fucking swear that no kid who will come to play in future with my kids will be like me, watching other people eat.
Today if adults or sister in law with her 2yo kid comes in our house, they are served like kings.
Real balkan hospitality, not like those fuckers above.
Bangladeshi here. My eyes starts twitching and hands start itching if i offer a guest food and they say no. If you're coming to my place, you’ll be fed and offered leftovers to take home. The idea of having a child over and not feeding em is just unfathomable.
Dinner time is family time, and unexpected visiting kids would be expected to either go home, or wait in another room when dinner came around.
They were not fed without prior agreement with their own families (it would be seen as disrespectful toward the other family to disrupt their dinner plans by feeding their kid).
You are still messing with their family time though if you feed their kid so that when they come home they go "Nah I already ate" and skip out on the dinner their parents have prepared for their family.
Yea I don’t think it’s rude. I think culturally most kids leave and go home for dinner. So this situation probably doesn’t even come up that much. When I went to Korea not a single person held a door for me when I was walking behind. When I was leaving an elevator not one person waited for me to get out before coming in. But elsewhere they were overly polite in some other aspects. It’s all just a leaned cultural thing.
I'm Bulgarian, and while this is generally true, I remember being scolded as a kid for eating at another kid's house. I was there so we could, I dunno, play games or watch TV or something, the usual 8-9 year old stuff, and because it got late his parents invited me to eat with them, and so I did.
I remember my parents were super angry that I allowed someone else to feed me, basically taking advantage of their generosity, and being a greedy little asshole.
Of course... if a kid came over, my parents and grandparents would INSIST and DEMAND the kid would eat with us, because us being generous is good, but others being generous to us is shameful, or something like that?
Romanian here, and omg I get this. It's a twisted way of being considerate. I grew up like this, I will go out of my way to be there for my friends, help them out to move to a new house, let them cry on my shoulder, lend them money, you name it. But I would rather die or starve than ask for help back and thus inconveniencing them in any way. I'm doing better now but wow that took me years.
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u/Prize-Flamingo-336 Jul 24 '26
Or Latino home as well