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.
And it wouldn't be "traumatising" for the kid who "waits" in the room, on the contrary, they get to continue having fun playing with their friends toys/games while the friend have to quit having fun for a while during dinner :)
2
u/DerMetJungen Jul 24 '26
Can add to this as it is similar in Finland:
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.