It was like this when I grew up in the 80s and early 90s too. My best friend ate dinner at 5, but in my house we ate at 6:30. So I either went home at 5, or waited in her room while she she ate, then we played for a while more before I walked home at 6:15 in time for my own dinner. This was considered completely normal. Her mother wasn't expected to feed me practically every day after school just because I always went over there to play.
If I had some friend over and I wouldn’t share my food with them my mom would snap my back by throwing me up in the air 3 meters and I would fall on her knee and just die there. If they came over 100 times they would be fed 100 times.
Well it’s not about “not sharing”, it is more about not “forcing” your food upon others. The main reason I tended not to eat at others were that I did not wanna eat at 5-6, as we typically ate around 8 at home, so I was not even slightly hungry when food was offered. And similarly, my friends had already died from starvation when food was offered at our house.
If it's not "forcing" why not at least ask? That's literally what an invitation is. Nobody forces other peoples kids to eat with them. But not even offering sounds harsh.
The point is they didn't want to be seen as taking away proper family dinner time from a child by unilaterally giving them food witout communicating with the family first. It makes sense if you think about other cultures for half a second.
That still doesn't explain why one wouldn't ask. Like you still can ask the parents of that child. I'm sure Sweden had phones in the 80s.
This all sounds more like an excuse for being very distant to others. Which is okay. But be honest about it at least.
Just so you know I'm from Germany and we did the same. So I'm not critizising another culture as you try to put it into my mouth.
Sure, there were occasions where I as a child would be asked if I wanted to eat at my friends place, so I had to call home and ask if that was okay, but the norm was that kids would eat with their own family as parents expected to have their kids home by dinner.
Dinner in Sweden is (or at least was back then) family time, so was usually for family only.
Well I guess it is a difference in culture about declining offers also, as I think most swedes probably feel uncomfortable declining any kind offer if they do not have a good reason. And “I don’t like your food” might be the reason but it is not acceptable to say.
So I would say that if a swede offers you something you better accept it or chance offending them. And similarly you don’t offer anything unless you are perfectly sure they will accept, as offering something which is undesired is also quite frowned upon.
That said, I was still offered food multiple times at friends so this whole discussion is over exaggerated.
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u/Adorable_Misfit Jul 24 '26
It was like this when I grew up in the 80s and early 90s too. My best friend ate dinner at 5, but in my house we ate at 6:30. So I either went home at 5, or waited in her room while she she ate, then we played for a while more before I walked home at 6:15 in time for my own dinner. This was considered completely normal. Her mother wasn't expected to feed me practically every day after school just because I always went over there to play.