Over the course of my life, I have been groomed to believe that we are bound forever to those with whom we share blood. And while we may not get to choose our family, that bond is supposedly unbreakable because blood is mythologized to be thicker than water. Because it’s a given your creators have unconditional love and acceptance for you, their product of creation, am I right?

Spoiler alert, that’s not always how it plays out. Sometimes that bond ends up being your most prized possession… aaaand other times it ends up being your deepest regret. Because the love isn’t guaranteed to be unconditional… or even reciprocal. And even though it’s clear the feelings aren’t unanimous, these days people still seem to pretend to convince themselves it is, and keep their mouths shut about the truth. However luckily for humans, I’m not working with the programming of today… and my “family” basically handed me the scissors to cut ties to the biological trauma bond sewing my mouth shut, and the universe has been helping me unravel the stitches this whole time.

The word family didn’t always mean the cliche it stands for today. The word comes from Latin familia, which originally did not mean a loving household. It meant “the household of a man, including his slaves and dependents.” Pater Familia.

Famulus = servant or slave

Familia = the collective of servants belonging to a single master

So in ancient Rome, “family” was about property and hierarchy, not kinship. It implied control, duty, and ownership — a social structure centered on the pater familias (male head of house). Ironically vampires are mythologized to refer to groups sired by the same origin, as a family. Like if one turns one and then that first turn turns three more, and then those three turn a bunch, they are all considered a family. Sort of like dominoes knocking each other down really. Condemning souls

By the Middle Ages (Old French famille), the meaning shifted:

* Still hierarchical, but it expanded to include blood relatives and household members.

* It was tied to lineage, inheritance, and class, not affection.

The “family values” sentiment—love, care, chosen bonds—didn’t emerge until much later, roughly 17th–18th centuries, when domestic life and romantic love became idealized in Western Europe.

If you split the Latin anatomy of the word: fa = to speak (as in “fable” or “fate”) mulus / mil = labor, burden, or service → so metaphorically, “family” could be read as “spoken duty” or “bonded service.” The very sound of it carries echoes of obligation before affection… a contract before a connection. The “-y” meaning the act of being, a fated to labor or service to one particular man with a serious God complex…