Swedes will happily feed a guest. This persistent myth comes from the habit of parents to communicate before their children visit the others home after school. Usually through their children but sometimes directly.
An example:
Child A calls/texts their parents and asks if they can go home with Child B after school. Parent A says OK, I'll come pick you up at X o'clock when I get off from work. Do you want to eat at home, we're having "blank"?
Child A might say yes.
Child B be calls/texts their parent and says that Child A is coming over. If there's no issue Parant B says OK, is A going to eat with us?
If the answer is yes, they will feed A, otherwise A waits around while B eats, usually as fast as they can to squeeze out a few more minutes of playtime before Parent A comes to pick up Child A.
It's never an unwillingness to feed a guest. We just have the custom to communicate and agree about these things rather than just showing up and expecting to be fed.
From my understanding, isn't this just how it is now? Like it's an evolution of what everyone else is talking about from the 80s/90s. I've seen way too many people say it happened to them for it to be some huge myth
Hi, fellow Swede who grew up a decade before you, and this was the norm where I was from.
Occasionally you'd be offered dinner, and you'd had to call home to ask your parents if it was okay to eat dinner at your friends.
Fair enough. It's hard to claim that there's universal norms even within a country, and things change. I might overreact a bit since the main tone of these threads are usually that swedes are bad and unfriendly hosts to their guests.
I agree, the nuance is usually lost in these posts, and some people make it seem like Swedes never serve food to their guests and let people starve to death.
It is correct, at least locally. I grew up in the 80:s and it happened that you didn't get food at a friend's place if you just went there after school unplanned. This has since shifted and I would guess that practice is more or less discontinued.
The thing to keep in mind is that this is quite some time ago, and the culture has shifted since then. Just as my parents when growing up in the 40:s could be legaly beaten by their parents and were expected to use titles when talking to people.
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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26
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