My mother walked in the back door of the house to find a pool of blood on the ground. There was a trail of blood leading to the family room couch, where my elderly aunt had dragged herself after falling down a flight of stairs.

This aunt, my father's sister, is in her late 80s and has lived on-and-off with my parents in Texas for the past 20 years. She survived her recent fall with just a cut to her head, which has since healed. It took much longer for her to recover from a stroke, also occurring in my parent's home, last spring.

She had been paralyzed, and my parents' main-level family room transformed to a nursing facility of sorts. The brunt of her care fell on my mother and father, but all of us -- her nieces and nephews -- rallied around her. She relearned how to talk, feed and dress herself and walk within a matter of months, a remarkable recovery for someone her age.

Doctors acknowledge that one of the most critical elements in a patient's rehabilitation from stroke is the strength and commitment of their primary support system, typically their family. The tenacity of family connections may be a factor that contributes to Hispanics living longer than non-Hispanic whites, despite a higher health risk profile.

Recent research indicates Hispanic study participants had significantly higher survival rates for cancer, heart disease, HIV/AIDS and other medical conditions such as lupus, diabetes, kidney disease and strokes -- part of the "Hispanic paradox" debated in academic papers.

In some cultures, including my own South Asian background, the typical family arrangement involves at least a period of multigenerational living beyond childhood. Growing up, we always had an aunt or a grandparent spending part of the year with us. Seasonally, one of us gave up our bedroom and moved into a shared space.

It's not so unusual in non-ethnic households anymore, either.

A 2011 report, "Family Matters: Multigenerational Families in a Volatile Economy," published by Generations United, reported that more than 51 million Americans -- about one in six -- lived in a multigenerational household. That's an increase of more than 10 percent since the recession began in 2007.

Yet, as often as tight family bonds and shared living quarters lead to improved health outcomes, they may just as often provoke a host of mental health issues -- specifically, nearly losing your mind because you are living with so many crazy people with whom you share genes and perhaps little else.

I am reminded of this every year when we visit my family for an extended visit. My parents' house, normally home to three generations, expands to four during these trips. It's not the sheer body count that heightens the sense of chaos.

A small person may be messing with the elaborate entertainment system upstairs set up by my adult brother and his wife, who live there. An older person may require a different meal than everyone else because of set-in-stone preferences and routines. Someone gets stuck doing most of the dishes. And sooner or later, normal political differences between adults begin to veer into increasingly ad hominem attacks during evening discussions.

The generational differences can surface in unexpected ways.

I have had a strained relationship with my aunt, who has lived with us for so long, because I have witnessed the extent to which her care has fallen on my mother's shoulders. She doesn't speak English, and her mentality is still very much mired in Old Country, back-home thinking. But I am grateful she, and her older sister before her, have been a constant part of my life. Living with them has taught me something valuable about compassion and tolerance.

I don't know if I could do what my parents have done -- so willingly and generously opened their home to any relative who has needed it, for as long as they have needed it. I've seen my father's brother and his wife, who also live in Houston, do the exact same with their home for as long as I can remember.

But their living example of choosing to give rather than take, of choosing to forgive rather than resent, has been a lifelong lesson in how to love.

Emily Albertson, 23, spent much of her childhood surrounded by boys obsessed with sports.

She has two brothers, and out of 15 cousins, she was the only girl. It's no surprise that she grew up to become an avid sports fan. What she didn't expect, however, was that she would be tested about her fandom every step of the way.

"Oh, really, you're a Tigers fan?" one of her college buddies might start. And then she'd face questions to test her knowledge, to prove herself. Once she passed the first hurdle, the bar would be set higher for her.

Albertson, now a second-year law student at the University of Michigan, began thinking about these experiences as a Michigan undergrad in Andrei S. Markovits' class "Sports, Politics and Society."

Together, they've written a book, "Sportista: Female Fandom in the United States," studying the phenomenon of the dedicated female fan and how she fits into a male-dominated sports culture and conversation.

Even though more female fans follow professional sports than ever before, Albertson and Markovits focus on the most devoted among them. They argue that even these "sportistas" are not fully accepted as equal-status fans by their male counterparts.

"Any in-group doesn't like newcomers," Markovits explained. And men have historically drawn the lines around sports as male territory. Female encroachment is viewed with suspicion by some. For these gatekeepers, fandom is not measured by affection or loyalty toward a team, but by knowledge of its statistics, plays and history.

The professor and student co-authors observed that, generally, women and men experience spectator sports differently and speak a different language about the games they watch.

For women, it's a collective experience, Markovits says. They love a team, the players, the game itself. But once it's over, it's done.

"They'll watch ESPN while doing something else," he said. With men, however, the cerebral discussion -- the pregame, the postgame, the collecting of sports knowledge -- can be as important as the game itself.

"For men, sports is the default language ... that's what defines your male identity," Markovits said. "In the world of straight men, you are expected to be a sports fan simply by being a man."

Albertson said that among her male roommates in college, she tended to know less about the history of a particular team, even though she consumed just as much current sports coverage as the men.

"Unless you're in that conversation from a very young age ... the best quarterback of all time, a famous game from the '70s, that's my accent. I'll never be able to sound as fluent as someone who was speaking that from when they were born," she said.

But this should not discredit her as a serious fan, they argue.

Their research raises the question of why some men are threatened by women who are more interested in ESPN than the Kardashians. Is it because there are so few male-only spaces left in our culture that sports is a sacred realm?

Whatever the possible explanations, Markovits said he found it wonderful to discover that female fans have constructed their own sports world, and love being fans on their own terms.

"Ultimately, it doesn't matter much what men think," he said.

Albertson recounted one of her favorite anecdotes from the interviews.

Jillian, their subject, relayed an incident from fourth grade in which she told a boy in her class that she was a Mets fan. He challenged her to name even one player.

She did.

He countered with: Name the first four batters.

She did.

Not satisfied, he challenged her again with another test.

Finally, she named the entire roster.

A nearly identical grade-school conversation recently played out in a particular bedroom in St. Louis County. A husband and wife were both listening to a Cardinals game on the radio. After a close loss, the wife vocally expressed her dismay.

The husband responded: "OK, if you're such a Cardinals fan, name 20 players."

"I refuse to play this game," I said to him, in equal parts annoyed and amused.

Fourth grade was a very long time ago.

If the case of the New Jersey 18-year-old who moved out and is suing her parents for living expenses -- and her college fund -- has any child confused, here's some clarification on parental responsibility:

No one owes you an iPhone.

No one owes you a car when you turn 16.

No one owes you a wedding.

No one owes you a ticket to the college of your dreams.

And no one has an obligation to pay your bills once you move out.

Many parents choose to pay for many of these expenses out of love. If they cannot afford to pay for any of the above, they do not love you any less. That said, parents do have a responsibility to children for their education, but it may be different than the child's expectations.

We all know someone, perhaps ourselves, who managed to graduate college with little to no financial support from their parents. But the system of getting financial aid has changed. Costs are astronomically greater than when most of us attended school, and a college degree is much more important than it used to be.

Now, a student under the age of 25 cannot even apply for financial aid or be eligible for loans or grants unless their parents fill out the application and share their financial information. Even if the parents decide not to pay a dime toward college, the student is still considered a dependent. The parents' resources (income and assets) are still taken into account when determining how much a student receives in grants and loans.

The government, colleges and universities have all decided that the primary responsibility for paying for higher education rests on parents. This hurts students whose parents choose not to contribute at all.

The only recourse for a child in this situation is to file for legal emancipation, which can take a year or two to get through the financial aid process.

Can we expect a teenager to pay for his or her own college education, without any assistance, through working low-paying jobs?

In this year's survey of college costs, the College Board reports that a "moderate" budget for an in-state public college -- covering tuition, room, board and other expenses -- averaged $22,826 per academic year. A moderate budget for a private college averaged $44,750.

We have determined that 18-year-olds are adult enough to vote and fight in our wars, but we have made it nearly impossible for them to pay for higher education on their own.

Suing your parents for tuition money, like Rachel Canning is attempting to do, is an unprecedented way of trying to close that gap. Upon first reading the reports, it's easy to dismiss Canning as a spoiled brat. She doesn't want to follow her parents' rules, yet she wants them to keep paying her bills.

If she wants to move out and have the freedom to live by her own rules, there's a cost to that. There's a consequence for actions, meaning you've picked a boyfriend over your college fund.

A young woman who is an honors student, cheerleader and athlete at a private school obviously had some parental care and attention to bring her to that point. If her parents say their expectations were for her to show some respect, meet curfew and ditch a boyfriend they considered a bad influence, most people find that a reasonable position.

The dysfunctions of this particular family situation, the allegations of verbal and emotional abuse countered by denials and counter-allegations of lying, will be sorted out by the judge; he'll make a ruling next month on whether Canning's parents have to pay for college. He's already ruled that they don't have to pay her $650 a week in living expenses since she left their home voluntarily.

But outside the specific circumstances of this case, there's a larger question: If a student has the ability and desire to go to college, and the parents have resources to help pay for that, are they obligated to contribute?

Parents decide to bring a child into this world. We should be prepared to help them succeed and live up to their full potential. So, yes, we ought to fill out the financial aid forms and make some personal sacrifices to help our children, who should be taught this is a gift -- not an entitlement.

The financial aid process needs to be reformed to recognize that not all students receive money from their parents after they turn 18. If a student is willing to work, there should be a place for them to learn.

As someone who financed the vast majority of my own higher education, I believe my parents gave me more important gifts than a blank check for college tuition.

In addition to food and shelter until they turn 18, this is what parents, in fact, owe their children: love, compassion, encouragement, boundaries and the faith and training that they can be self-sufficient when they leave our care.