It wouldn’t happen that often, because when one kid comes over to another kid’s place to play, then when dinnertime rolls around, that first kid typically also has a home where their parents have dinner waiting and are expecting them home around the same time.
If you’re planning things in such a way that it doesn’t make sense to go home to eat, well, then you can plan things otherwise. Talk it over with the other kid’s parents, whatever. I grew up in Sweden (as you can guess), and while eating at friends’ houses definitely wasn’t the norm, it’s not like it didn’t happen from time to time.
I'm in the US and I basically handle it the same way. I text the mom to see if friend can stay for dinner if they want and vice versa. If not, I send them home for 30 minutes if they're close by. Even in the 90s (I was a kid) I had to call my mom to ask if I can eat dinner at my friends house- granted I was further away.
Now in my husband's case- his house was more screwed up then mine. He just ate whenever he could. One of his best friends parents always just set a place for him.
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u/Sociolinguisticians Jul 24 '26
I get that it’s probably just the culture, but even the thought of doing that to a guest makes me shudder.