Childhoods friend mum never made me tea

[Butterflyandroses]

Hi all, I want your opinion on this, im thinking back to when I was a teen and would go round my friends house, ive not eaten all day apart from breakfast and lunch. Her mum would never offer me dinners and if she would come to mine my dm would always cook her dinner I know its a long time ago now. But I could never do this to my dc friends! Its feels so mean aibu?

Maybe it was a hint for me to go I dont know, but her mum was ignorant and dont think she liked me much as she made a nasty comment about my father that died cut me deep.

timings matter - some people eat early at 6.30pm and some eat late at 9pm

No point dwelling on it now. FWIW, on the odd occasions when I was at my friend's house after school, her mum would ask if I'd like to stay for 'dinner'. By that time of day 'tea', ie the main meal at my house, would have long since been eaten, so I always accepted, and it's only in recent times that it occurred to me that she might have been trying to hint that it was time for me to go.

Where were your parents?

You had breakfast and lunch.

Did your parents give you dinner?

Yes awful as it was got you, you should have gone home.

@Mrsjayy thought me better about what?? my mum and gran has taught me to be polite and respectable thank you.

Exactly this! That was your signal to go home!!!

Depends what meal she had prepared. If there was a fillet of salmon/chicken/ steak etc, then I doubt she'd have an extra one just in case.
Equally she might have been annoyed all the times she'd prepared dinner and your friend ate at yours and there was wasted food.
I would expect unless invited for dinner that parents had diner waiting at home for children. Equally though I would try to feed any that lingered around dinner time

Why are you even thinking about this now, let alone posting about it? Too much time on your hands?

@Bellaboo01 of course my mum cooked me dinner when I got home

Well you knew that the mum wouldn't feed you but you still hung around your mum should have made sure what the eating arrangements were and made sure you knew what to do and handle the situation it isn't manners to not know how to behave in these situations. The friends mum probably didn't want to say anything maybe she should have so everyone was on the same page.

Then what’s the issue? Why didn’t you just go home?

Then why did you expect someone else to also provide you with a dinner?

"not eaten all day apart from breakfast and lunch"

Eh???

I've definitely not offered dinner to kids when I want them to bugger off home. I hope they're not still thinking about it in years to come.

Sorry but clearly this is not the case as you sat in someone else’s home and watched the friend eat dinner time and time again 🤣

You say the mum was ignorant and didn’t like you, yet you kept bloody turning up!!

The only reason you should be dwelling on this is out of embarrassment, not because you think the mum was so in the wrong. You had your own legs to get up and your own home to go to.

It sounds like the friend didn't ask her Mum if she could have someone over. Parents meal plan food and it's hard to just create an extra meal. I don't think of this Mum on a bad light at all. Very different scenario if you had been invited over for the day/evening. Then I would have imagined food to be provided.

If anything the friend overstepped and probably a conversation was going on in the background you're unaware of. I wouldn't have invited people over when I was younger without checking with my parents. It's just not what we did in my house. I also wouldn't have expected to be fed and we weren't well off at all. I would have asked if I could have popped home eaten and come back later. Or they could have come to mine. That would have been a compromise.

The other thing is some parents like some downtime in the evening with stressful jobs. We didn't have friends over during the week for this reason.

Lots to think about. I honestly wouldn't worry about things that were in the past, I'm sure it wasn't a reflection of you more so the circumstances of the family dynamic.

Buzz off home for your own dinner!

She didnt even give me a slice of her birthday cake 😂 when I was invited to her birthday party 😤

The rule when I was a child was unless you were specifically invited for a meal, prearranged, it was rude to expect it. You went home when it was time for tea. Your parents would be expecting you back for tea. In the halcyon days of kids going off to play with their mates all day, the standard reminder before I went out the door was, 'be back by tea time'.
My mother made it clear to me that I could have friends for meals if I asked in advance, but not last-minute. She would never have served a meal in front of someone without feeding them as well, but made it absolutely clear we weren't to put her in that position.
I thought this was common practice. It was certainly true of all my friends. You played, then went home for your meals.

seems a bit odd to never offer you dinner especially as your friend was fed dinner at yours on a few occasions. it's normally polite to reciprocate even if its only a couple of times.

going by the replies on here sounds like a lot of other people wouldn't bother reciprocating either 🙄

Gently OP; it seems as though you are struggling now with the breakdown of your relationship even though it wasn’t necessarily a great one. Perhaps you are questioning why you kept going back, when you knew you were not bring treated as you should, and are linking this to another instance where you kept going somewhere where you were not treated as you should.
Don’t try to put this in a box and forget it. Sit with it, accept it and use it as motivation to trust your feelings in the future. When someone shows you who they are - believe gem. If you don’t feel you are being treated as you should then you probably aren’t.
Take care.

Thinking ahead a little to when my dc is a teen, I can't imagine us feeding random friends at no notice. We are a small family of three and just don't make big 'more the merrier' meals on a normal evening. Only when entertaining (pre-planned). If ds asks somebody over at tea time I wouldn't be impressed as it's a family time to catch up, but I don't look forward to the awkwardness of asking them to leave.

Why were you there when they were having family meals? I expect my DCs friends to go home when we are having dinner unless they have been invited for dinner.

It's not their job to feed you, it's your job and your parents/guardians, not your friend and her family.