I think people read a bit too much into single experiences. It is not like this is representative of how things work.

Usually we ask kids to go home, but you talk to the kids you know. It is not like we are robots. You the parent, your child and his/her playmate may talk together about what to do.

The kid may say that "I already ate at home, can I please stay?"

We try to be flexible. Sometimes kids get to stay because both the kid and your kids want them to stay. It feels normal to us. I would stay at people when they ate occassionally when I was a kid. It did not feel odd to me. Rather I was glad I DIDN'T get invited to eat with the family. Why would I want that? As a kid you tend to be picky and not want to eat anything. Also you know it is really impolite to not eat everythign when visiting someone. Also I would have found it akward to sit with the parents, brothers and siters of my friend. So I was happy to not get invited.

We know that as parents too today and try to accomodate kids.

I don't get why people say "eat in front of them." Where do you guys get that idea from? I have never seen anyone describe that, nor experienced it myself.

Yes, it does actually happen in my home but only after we have asked if they want food. There are some friends of the family who we know well enough that this is pretty common. We know from asking many times earlier that they prefer to not eat with us. We are not going to pester them about eating with us every single day of the week forever.

I dunno, it seems like people want to believe the worst or something.