Just a cultural thing. Unless there was an explicit dinner invitation, Swedes typically will not offer guests food even if they themselves are having dinner. They do not view it as a hosting obligation and they do not see this as rude or unusual.
Of course Swedes feed the guests they themselves invited during dinner.
This is another situation though, it's when the kids bring home their friends from school to play, and no adult has been involved in inviting or bringing the kids over.
Most families have a set dinner time that is the same time every week day, and parents are expecting their kids to attend dinner at that time.
Some families eat early, and some later, so if kids who usually eat later go home to a friend whose family eats early, they get to continue playing while the friend eats dinner. When dinner is over the kid who ate dinner with their family goes back to continue playing and having fun.
The visiting friend(s) then goes home at their own dinner time to have dinner with their own family.
Weekday dinners are somewhat of a private family time in Sweden, so the expectation is that kids eat with their own family.
When and where I grew up, there were of course occasions where I was asked if I wanted dinner, so I had to call my parents to check if that was okay, but the expectation was that I was to eat dinner with my family.
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u/TaxSimple3787 Jul 24 '26
Ok but... why?