Squid vs Famulus

According to trusty Dictionary.com, the origin of the word family goes like this:

Origin:
1350–1400; ME familie familia a household, the slaves of a household, equiv. to famul(us) servant, slave + -ia -y³

"Famulus" is Latin for servant. And we all know what a servant is. They tend to people's needs. They take care of said people. It makes more sense why family is derived from that. As a family way back in the day, I'm sure that the children stayed closer to home when it came time to get married and have their own little families. This way, they could all take care of each other and as the parents got older, the children would tend to their parents as they were tended to. Then as the centuries go by, it's become kind of frowned upon to stay right down the street from your parents. It's become weird to be married off at such a young age & have babies ASAP. It's the norm to shove your mom or dad into a nursing home and pay strangers to take care of them.

Nowadays everyone is set on being their own individual. We want to live our own lives and do our own thing with little to no interference from others. Why would we want to have merely a taste of what it's like to be freed into the world only to come back home and take care of our deteriorating parents for God knows how long? We're taught in school, by friends, by peers, by the media, and most ironically our parents & family to only worry about ourselves, grab life by the balls with an iron claw, and make the most of it. I don't remember leaving home and hearing my parents holler, "Have fun! You'll be back when you finally have your shit straight!"

I really have no idea what I'm talking about. I don't know what I'm going to do when my dad dies and my mom loses it. I'm going to want to put her in some kind of assisted living simply because I'm only 22, and I won't have the ability nor patience to live with her and take care of her. I don't see myself gaining these lost abilities within the next 5 years either.

I feel guilty as a daughter. I've never felt that strong of a connection that a tight-knit family experiences. We don't help each other out without some sort of payback or guilt trip. I haven't really done anything for my parents. At the moment, I live under their roof for free while I try to get on my own two feet. They never made me do chores as a kid, and if I wanted my room to be messy and stinky - then they'd let it be messy and stinky. Same went for my hygiene.

If I feel so bad about it, I suppose I could do something. I could try and stay home more often. I could try to spend more time with my parents no matter how much they upset me half the time. I could try to help my mom more with my dad. I could. I could dish out a nice wad of money and help them get the side of the car fixed. Yep. I could... I could.

Let's face reality: I have the guilt, the intentions, and the idea. But will I do anything about it?

Probably not.