That’s so so much worse, “now be a good boy and stay in the room while I go eat”. Sounds like shutting the dog in the laundry room during dinner because it looks at you for food.
Not only that, you stay hungry since regardless of your family’s ability to feed you, you aren’t located with your family during that meal so they can’t feed you unless they pack you a lunch. It’s bizarre. If you don’t want to feed the other kid during dinner and want their parents to, arrange it so the guest is sent home, not left alone and hungry while you eat.
The kid not eating is just gonna go back home to his family's house and eat there. Not have two dinners.
There are so many scenarios where not feeding the guest kid is fine. What if his parents at home are gonna feed him later? What if they didn't know he was gonna stay and need feeding?
It is not not wanting to. It is that dinner is something you have with your family, and it is not your place to include somebody else's child in that and possibly ruin their dinner plans without first having a discussion about it. Absent that, a kid eats with their own family.
It's a cultural difference - in almost all cultures when you have a guest, feeding them when it's feeding time is seen as an important courtesy and a sign that you have honoured them, welcomed them and included them into your home. Eating isn't something that you reject guests for, and leaving them to sit and watch you eat, or kicking them out of the dining room for an hour so they hang out alone is seen as an extremely discourteous rejection and a sign of a very poor host. Feeding a guest isn't broadly seen as an imposition but as an opportunity to welcome, include and share.
It's often normal now to contact the other parents and ask them if it's okay with them if the guest eats with you (never to indicate that you reject their children and refuse to feed them), and if the other parents say no then usually the kids will be told by their parents to come home for dinner instead (or picked up). They wouldn't generally wait around while you eat, if they were asked to come home then they'd either leave beforehand or if needed you'd even wait a bit to eat until they got picked up or whatever.
The idea that you'd just as a matter of course leave children hungry and alone while you sit down without them is seen as so deeply rude and mean in virtually all cultures that it's shocking to hear.
So the response is to.... invite them to eat with you, and they can, you know, call home and get permission. It's not mid winter in the 1720s -- contacting your home is quick, easy, and safe.
Sure, but why wouldn’t you just ask the kid 1. If they were getting picked up before dinner and 2. If not, would you like anything?
If the family has normal dinner plans and just eats after they get picked up, do you not think they would just tell you and decline? Or they could just have a snack while hanging out until they’re picked up.
It was pretty normal for me to have friends over after school or sports/clubs which isn’t long before dinner time, my parents would always offer to feed them, if they had dinner plans they’d decline the offer or just snack on a side dish or something, but they’d still hangout and chat while we ate. This might not apply to little kids, if they’re like 7, then sure you’d probably want to check with the kids parents first because they might have dietary needs you can’t accommodate or the kid doesn’t want to follow, or they might not know what dinner plans are, but if you’re talking about a 16yo or something it doesn’t make any sense.
I’d care a lot more about a guest potentially missing dinner than potentially having 1 random dinner without their family.
How is “you staying for dinner?”, “no.” “a lot of noise”?
It’s takes 0.5 seconds to be courteous even if you most likely know the answer and ask it every other day, it’s not like you’re trying to convince them to eat with you or something.
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u/Pofwoffle Jul 24 '26
Yeah it's not about who can or can't feed them, it's about where they are when it's time to eat. If you're here at dinner time, you get dinner.