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?

I can remember some families being like this. One asking me to wait in the other room, this would be considered extremely rude in my family.

Our home was the opposite (we had little money) and I find I am often feeding ds friends I am happy to I get to listen to their conversations 😀

I think you know the context and you know she didn’t like you very much. People can be very weird. Let it go. It’s not your fault she treated you like this. You had a lovely mum who was kind to others.-that’s a nicer thing to dwell on.

Where you actually invited over to have dinner? If not why should they feed you, you had your own family whose job is to feed you.

I use to go out, knock on friends doors and ask if friend could come out to play. Sometime friends would come do the same at mine and instead of the park I would be like 'lets play in the garden' (as I had swing sets and climbing stuff) or when knocking at theres they would say 'come play in my room instead' etc...

Later their parents call them for dinner and kick you out. You where always told to come back in half an hour or that friend would come find you later. They expect you to go home to your OWN family and have your OWN dinner... its pretty standard.

That would still be very rude of the 'guest' to impose and take food away from the family leaving them not enough.

Also in most cases not actually a guest just a child that showed up.

How embarrassing for your friend and poor you going hungry. It sounds as though she went hungry at times too.

I wonder why her mother was like that. We'll never know.

What a nasty women she sounds. I have been on my uppers when the kids were little, but would NEVER not invite their friends to eat with us.

My mum would feed whoever was at our house if they were there at teatime, she'd probably say "are you staying for tea love?" to my friends. At other friend's houses the mum would often say "Your friend has to go home now because we're having tea". Families are different 🤷‍♀️ I'm from a culture where if someone comes to your house, you feed them! But not all families are like this. It's not rude, it's just differences. It's fine!

So you in fact WEREN'T an invited guest of the meal provider or even there in the run up to the meal.

She likely has bought a set amount of things and cooked a set amount of portions in advance for her family since you weren't expected.

You can't take an invitation from a CHILD and call yourself a 'guest'.

Thinking back to my childhood (I was primary school age), I had quite a few friends, and each family did things differently.

When I had a friend round, my mum would always invite them for "tea" (as in evening meal - usually sandwiches, crisps and cake, sometimes pizza and chips).

I had a friend who would invite me over "to play", which meant it was just a friend over to play and I never expected to be fed.
Looking back I can see that it was probably because the father was working late, and the family waited to eat together when he came in from work (by which time I would have gone home).

We got to know how each family did things, and just accepted their way.

By the age of about 13 I don't think either mine or my mates mums were feeding us.
Usually you could help yourself to snacks. I think maybe on weekends if lucky you'd be able to have takeaway pizza. If not I remember eating all my meals with my mates as a teen in McDonald's! Quite happily I might add.
Family mealtimes didn't really seem to feature. And this was across working class to upper middle. The only one who fed us was the cook in the children's home where one mate lived. But it was always Iceland's pizza and chips. Again, was perfectly satisfied with that!

Presumably this was some years ago? Why is it at the forefront of your mind now? I would always be inclined to feed a child at mine if they are around at dinner time however I'm asian and if the friend couldn't eat what I had cooked I probably wouldn't come up with an alternative on a regular basis. Now and again would be fine but I don't always have beige food in. My reason being that my kids would then hanker after the alternative and I'd incur extra expense and it's more hassle.

I think in this situation it is harsh but the mum was probably hinting that you go home.

Well, nasty mum saved when OP's mum fed her child along with OP, so she should have reciprocated - just the basic level of manners.

Stop excusing nasty behaviour.

I don’t think anyone’s obliged to feed their children’s friends and maybe she couldn’t afford to?

If you’re friend wax eating her tea and you were hungry maybe it would of been a good time to go home and eat your own dinner 🤷‍♀️

If you start cooking for your DC friends without an actual set plan of X is coming for dinner, you fall into the trap of being the default hangout and having all of your food consumed by teens. I had to put a stop to it, five teens descending on mine multiple times a week broke the bank so I think YABU.

All kinds of friends' parents' behaviour looks weird when you look back, I think. It's quite fascinating dissecting all the family tensions that went right over my head decades ago.

I’m jealous that you have this much time on your hands. If I have enough time to think what’s for tea and tidy up that’s a result.

Currently recovering from my LO tornado of a day while he sleeps. Ah to have, as much time as you do.

ive not eaten all day apart from breakfast and lunch

😂🙄

Not that odd.

If you lose a parent young as OP did.. and then someone makes a really nasty remark about your parent - that memory can stay with you.

It's clearly bothering her. Why shouldn't she try to work out why that is?

Don’t know why this thread reminded me on an occasion at a friend’s house where the mum included me at dinner. Once time visitors turned up unexpectedly and got dinner.

Years later I mentioned this occasion to the friend and she said herself and her mum got no dinner.

Anyway in house everyone present dinner time got dinner. It was the way my mother was brought up.

What a weird thing to be fixated on. If dinner was being cooked, I would leave as it's not ok to assume you'll be fed. My mum would happily feed people but I doubt she liked doing it! My son has a friend here today, I've given him breakfast and lunch but I will be sending him home before dinner! I fed him 3 times a few days ago. I can't do this all the time. Maybe they just wanted family dinners and that's absolutely fine.

Haven't eaten all day apart from breakfast and lunch made me laugh.

Tiny weeny violin.

Whenever I was at someone's house as a teenager, I always took their dinner being served as a sign for me to leave.

My best friend had parents like this. They barely spoke to me. I learned a few years ago they didn’t want us to be friends because my dad struggled with mental illness.! I found that revelation really hurtful and now view them completely differently.

My mum did this, mostly because we couldn't afford it. 'It's time for you to go now.' Fair enough.

I worked with someone whose parents had a fifteen bedroom house, in a very expensive area. If you hadn't booked a meal at the house, the staff wouldn't feed you - and there was no raiding the fridge.
On the other hand, the whole family were slim.