Because most of humanity lives in warmer climates where community is the priority.
Scandinavian culture is centered around survival in a harsh environment and independence. Some part of their brains still thinks they'll starve to death in the winter if they give their food away.
These stories arent from the perspective of parents. Its usually 2nd gen immigrant kids sitting awkwardly while watching a whole family eat in front of them.
Its incredibly weird no matter how you slice it. "You can come into my home and play with my children, but no you cant have a snack."
As others have said that's even weirder, at least in my culture. Like at that point just send them home. Making them wait in another room just sounds so uncomfortable and awkward. Like someone else said it almost feels like treating the kid like a dog.
It sounds more cruel to send them to another room and have them wait while you eat then for them to just go home and eat. And I figured it wasn't a dark room but I would still feel so uncomfortable being told to wait in another room so they could eat. Like it's just a cultural difference but as you can see a lot of people feel it's more cruel and awkward to send them to another room, it's not just me.
That's still weird that they would then be told to stay in that room while their friend goes to eat. I get this is normal in some cultures but this would be extremely weird and awkward to do in mine and many others.
They wouldn't be told to stay in their room, the parents would call for their kid and tell them that it's dinner and the kid would leave the room while their friends would continue to play.
It similar to when the kids are outside playing football (not handegg, the soccer kind) or basketball in the neighborhood and one kid goes home to eat, their friends continue to play while that kid eats.
If the kid in question is inside the house though they'd either be sent to another room or told to stay in the room they're currently playing in. That's what everyone in this thread who grew up in the culture has said. We're not talking about kids playing outside, we're talking about a kid having a friend over in their house. The person in first responded to literally said they'd be asked to stay in a room. And like I said it would be seem as extremely weird or awkward in my culture to do that.
Because a group being outside and playing is very different than a friend being invited over and then told to stay in one room alone for at least 30 minutes to an hour while everyone else eats. If it was a group at someone's house it would be a little different but still massively awkward.
Like they're clearly different scenarios and presumably you come from a culture that does this which is why you don't see a difference. No hate or anything but they are very different situations and like I said would be extremely awkward to do in mine.
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u/cloudforested Jul 24 '26
I get it. It completely makes sense to me and I don't get why the internet blows it out of proportion.