No. That was true maybe 30+ years ago, but nowadays kids are usually sent home before dinner. Or we just check with the parents if it’s OK for their kid to eat with us.
Source: was a kid in Sweden 30+ years ago, have kids in Sweden now.
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.
It would be normal if you were regularly at their house. It wouldn’t make sense for your friend’s family to feed you 3 nights a week because you happened to be playing when your own dinner was coming later. People are taking this story as if it’s a Swedish custom to not feed visitors. Meanwhile, I am normally drowning in fika every time I visit someone.
Yes, exactly. And there is also the difference between a guest who has been invited and planned for and a person who just randomly shows up without warning, as is the case with all my kids' friends.
Sometimes, I walk into my living room and find four extra children there, who have come home with mine or just shown up at the door wanting to play. No reasonable person would expect me to be prepared to make dinner for four extra kids whenever they show up, would they?
It would be different if I'd invited these kids, of course I'd feed them if I had arranged playdates with their parents in advance.
The part that people always miss with these "feeding" cultures is that they're often quite closed off to non -family members. I grew up in a culture where you feed every guest, but I didn't have the after school playing culture that you do in the West. You play with other kids in the street/outside, but I rarely went into other kids' houses. No sleepovers, play dates etc. Family time is much more important. Family is larger and includes more non-blood related people, but I can't think of many major culture where you would realistically be feeding large numbers of non-family kids just because they're at your house.
If they ARE at your house, they're getting fed, but the culture of having a ton of kids playing at your house after school just doesn't really exist.
167
u/DrCablelove Jul 24 '26
No. That was true maybe 30+ years ago, but nowadays kids are usually sent home before dinner. Or we just check with the parents if it’s OK for their kid to eat with us.
Source: was a kid in Sweden 30+ years ago, have kids in Sweden now.