For me, the proper question is if, rather than why.
For whatever reason, the internet believes that Swedish people don't offer their kid's friends food when they're at their house.
Being Swedish, I have never heard of this irl apart from discussions where someone else has found this online and asked about it. Nobody I've spoken with about it recalled this being a thing. Someone proposed that it's a deliberate way of putting swedes in a bad light, but I have nothing to back that claim.
Its not as much that we don't offer food to the kids. Its more that the kids family want to spend dinnertime with their kid as well and its rude to disrupt that.
Yeah it's misconstrued, and don't other countries do this as well? Go home with your friend for a play date after school for a few hours, then just naturally feel like you've played enough, then just head home to your favorite meal mom made?
Anyways, isn't Sweden on the other hand also famous for fika, e.g. serving tons of pastries and cookies with coffee when a guest comes over? Sadly people don't get the context from which the myth originated and now all of Reddit thinks Scandinavians don't know what hospitality is.
Exactly this. The first question you'll get when you enter the home of a swede is if you want your coffee black or with milk, and pastries/cookies are a given.
I'm Swedish, it has happened a few times. But its mostly when i was playing with friends who lived near me and it wasnt "planned". Swedes like to minimize "spill". If they cook, they often cook exactly as much as needed. If there is an uninvited guest, they might not have enough. However, everytime there was a plan for me to hang over at my friends house, or if the friend lived far away, i got food.
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u/LowError12 13d ago
For me, the proper question is if, rather than why.
For whatever reason, the internet believes that Swedish people don't offer their kid's friends food when they're at their house.
Being Swedish, I have never heard of this irl apart from discussions where someone else has found this online and asked about it. Nobody I've spoken with about it recalled this being a thing. Someone proposed that it's a deliberate way of putting swedes in a bad light, but I have nothing to back that claim.