DD with friend’s family for 8 hours only ate crisps

[Z0rr0]

My DD was invited to an activity with friends today. She ate a toasted English muffin before she left at 8.15. By the time she came back at 4pm she’d only been offered some crisps to eat. I’m grateful the family took her out (I paid for her ticket which was less than a tenner) and hosted her at their home, but I just can’t fathom not offering her some lunch.

I think shes not being truthful. My son normally says this when asked what did you eat? Kids hate that question for some reason. I’ve heard that afterschool club didnt feed them anything as soon as I say let me call so and so to check they tell me about the picnic!

Eh? She’s hardly a kid, though, is she?

Uber eats. Or any of the other food deliveryapps

Yes I would expect 17 year old friends to talk to each other and sort out food between them.
If the DD isn't confident enough to express her needs to her friends then that is good for the parents to know and work on with her before she leaves home.

My teens are younger than 17 and I generally leave them to sort their own lunch, friends here or not. There is plenty of food in the fridge, cupboard and freezer for them to make themselves something. It would not surprise me in the least if they only helped themselves to crisps, as lazy teens tend to do.

Well this you need to work on

You can’t track her food at 17! She surely had money to go to the shop if she wanted! It sounded like she was on a play date the way you said you were grateful the parents had her.

The friend is the host and the OP's daughter is the guest. A 17-year-old should have some concept of being a host and looking after their guest by offering something to eat. I am not sure why it is up to the guest to ask for food.

Only on MN have I seen this concept of ‘hosting’. Is it not just having a mate round?

I wouldn't teach my children to sit meekly and not eat instead of talking to their friend. It's not a healthy mindset and won't get you anywhere in life.
Meek 'guessers' who can't communicate what they want just annoy people.
Shy bairns get nowt.
If my 17 year old came home saying they'd only had crisps all day because they didn't want to tell their friend they were hungry I'd tell them it's a lesson learned in speaking up.

This reminded me of when I first got with my partner and we visited his sister and her husbands family, they cooked and served and not offered us this happened more than once, which made me realise some people are just like that. I'm African and growing up I was taught a visitor is a GOD rather I the host not eat but must make to offer the visitor food.
Next time send her with her pack lunch or pocket money to grab something for herself to avoid such situations

Then change the word "Host" to whatever you say in Britain. The same way I changed "mate" to "friend" or "buddy". Where I live, a mate would be a shipmate.

Oh @Z0rr0, I’m finding all these comments really passive aggressive and I don’t know why. I think it’s because you are doubling down on your position when the comments have shown that there is a tonne of nuance and misunderstanding, and mismatched expectations. Nobody is right or wrong here, and I’m finding your comments really jarring.

As others have said better than I can, there is a broad societal expectation that 17-year-olds are more self-sufficient than your DD seems to be. We can’t mind read, so we don’t know what her friend’s parents were thinking, but I think it’s a logical deduction that they might also have assumed this, and we also don’t know what they said to the friend before they went out. They might have been explicit and said ‘make sure you feed her’. We just don’t know.

And like others have said, some parents feel that offering food to their kids’ guests would be akin to babying them or undermining them. Some don’t feel like that. I don’t think either of those things are unreasonable, I just think that different families have different expectations.

What I do think is unreasonable is being passive aggressive in replies. You have posted in AIBU, a thread with lots of traffic and lots of opinions. When you post on here (and I have), you need to get ready for loads of people to see things differently. Chiming in with weird posts that basically infer ‘well, I guess SOME people don’t have manners’ doesn’t really solve the problem.

I meant the friends along with my DS. I would expect DS to be helping himself to food too and telling them where things are or making something together. My DS knows well enough that if we’ve said his mates are welcome to come round to our house then that means they are welcome to treat our home like their home while they are here. But that also means I’m not ‘hosting’!

That seems reasonable.

Blame DD and her friend. They should have sorted lunch out together at lunchtime. The parents likely expected the same.

No it’s the use of it in a grand way as if it’s some kind of formal dining occasion

‘Shy bairns get nowt’? Really?

I was always taught that being a cheeky fucker was a bad thing.

Funny how different everyone is…

"Hosting" or for example, "whose turn is it to host this week?" is what we normally say in Canada. In Britain, it may have a different connotation.

It’s a middle class concept on here. And perhaps a little pretentious. i don’t know a single soul in RL who says it.

And kindly, why are you querying my comment when, as you say, you aren’t in the UK so it’s bound to be different.

But when you are talking about teens hanging out the dynamic is quite different to adults hosting. At 17 I would have had no issue saying to my 17 year old friend 'het what are we eating' at her place. But as an adult I wouldn't ask that - even if it happens to be the exact same friend!

Because you had queried my comment. I was the poster who used the word "host" a few posts ago. I was explaining that it must a difference in connotation or usage between Britain and North America.

Good point!

It wasn’t directed at you only. It was an observation on this thread and MN in general - many people use it on Mn and it just sounds a little pretentious. Different if it’s the usual in your country of course.

There is absolutely no cheeky fuckery in a teenager suggesting to her friend that they get something to eat.

I know there's a couple of posters on here saying they were raised to think that it's good etiquette to suffer in silence and expect your 'host' to anticipate and fulfil your every need. But that's outdated, and just a terrible thing to encourage in a young person as that kind of passive, self-sacrificing thinking will leech into other areas of her life too.