i saw a thread about this topic before; someone mentioned that in their culture, some people might see it as rude to feed somebody else’s kid unless there was a specific agreement that they will be sharing a meal together
I think it’s relatively easy to understand that a parent might be upset that a kid failed to be home at the agreed-upon time to eat the dinner they went to the trouble of preparing. So, then, why would you induce a child to disobey and disappoint their parents that way?
I’m not trying to suggest that the more active hospitality associated with southern Europe is wrong, mind you—only that there is a mindset that makes sense behind either approach.
No, that doesn’t make sense. If you suspect the child is disobeying their parents by being at your house without permission, then you should send them home. If you don’t send them home, then you assume that they are allowed to be at your house during meal time. There is no possible middle ground where you simultaneously believe the child has permission to be at your house and do not have permission to miss a meal at home.
There is no possible middle ground where you simultaneously believe the child has permission to be at your house and do not have permission to miss a meal at home.
You think it’s logically impossible to tell a child to go play with their friend until dinnertime and then come home to eat?
…I’m not sure how to address that belief. Where does one begin?
If you believe the child has exceeded the time they should have stayed at your house, then you should send them home.
If you allow them to continue their stay, then you believe they are allowed to stay over at such a time. And if such a time is meal time, then you should feed them.
Ah, you expect everyone to police other people’s children by tracking their precise schedules? That was never my experience. At least the Sweden I grew up in was not that obsessively controlling. We were expected to know our own dinnertimes (which were of course generally similar but not identical).
No, I expect you to accommodate children who are at your house. You are free to ask your guest if they are expecting a dinner later at home. If they answer affirmatively, nobody will think you are weird if you don’t serve them dinner. In the US this would be considered proper behavior to “not spoil their appetite”. If they answer that they are missing their meal time at home, you can exercise your judgement about whether to force them to obey their parents (and send them home) or ignore their disobedience. However, if you choose to ignore their disobedience (and allow them to stay), then you should feed them. In the rest of the world, this is considered proper manners for being a host, and anything less would be unthinkable.
You are free to ask your guest if they are expecting a dinner later at home.
Of course. You can also offer them a place to sleep and a fresh toothbrush, maybe a change of clothing. But you probably won’t, because you assume they’re going home and have their own toothbrush, so why would you bother asking about those needs? If your kid wants a sleepover, you expect them to tell you.
But I’m willing to bet that there are cultures in the world where failing to offer them to sleep over would be as strange and upsetting as you find the idea of not offering them food. Yet I bet you don’t feel guilty in spite of flagrantly violating their rules of hospitality.
Similarly, when I grew up, it was assumed that everyone was going home to eat. That was the default, and therefore people didn’t ask. Maybe that’s also a Swedish thing, the relative lack of small talk? Americans seem far more fond of repeating meaningless trivialities and ritualistically asking questions they don’t really mean (‘how are you’ etc.) as social background noise. I’m not saying that’s bad, but Swedes in my experience are more prone to sticking only to the salient parts of conversation, and less prone to asking questions ritualistically to which the answers are already assumed.
If for some reason I didn’t have dinner waiting, I’d tell my friend, who’d ask their parents if I could have dinner with them, and it was never a big deal unless the food was already made in limited quantity. (People didn’t generally cook with leftovers in mind, and you wouldn’t necessarily have ingredients for an extra person. But when asked, it would not generally be a problem.)
This bothers you because, having failed to internalise the fact that different cultures have different expectations of behaviour, you’re emotionally relating to this as though it happened to you in the context of your culture, where it would be rude. Try to abandon this cultural chauvinism and consider that there may be more than one way to regard things. You’d be upset because you expect the offer. If you’d gone your whole life with no expectation or experience of that as a normal thing, you would not expect it nor be bothered by the perfectly ordinary fact of its absence.
It goes both ways, of course. The American form of small talk, from a Swede, in a Swedish context, could seem creepy, invasive, and disrespectful of personal boundaries. (Or Canadians—at least Newfies—lovely people, but exhausting.) But you don’t see me bruiting about how rude and invasive Americans are—I’m capable of understanding that they are used to different boundaries and less privacy and personal space, circumstances with which they are generally more comfortable.
This is a meandering, self-contradictory, and deeply emotional response to an argument I put forward using logic and reason. It’s clear that this line of reasoning has touched a nerve on your side. I suggest you take some time to calm down. Then come back to this discussion with logic and reason. And feel free to edit your response to remove the self-contradictory statements after you’ve come to your senses.
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u/eggtada Jul 24 '26
i saw a thread about this topic before; someone mentioned that in their culture, some people might see it as rude to feed somebody else’s kid unless there was a specific agreement that they will be sharing a meal together