How to Dress for Old Age

When adult children take up the labour of care for absent fathers and stoic mothers, when contemplating their own futures, things can get complicated.

Room 306. Level Three. In inner city Melbourne, David Carlin's mother, Joan, is settling in. Five doors away, on the same floor of the same institution, Peta Murray's father, Frank, is halfway through the statistically ordained 18 months he is likely to live after entering "care". Each is 86. He—an ex-builder and sometime bon vivant—has shrun...