 If your parents become too frail to care for themselves, what will you do? Is such a thought conveniently buried in the sand? Perhaps it's because the options - a care home (morbidly depressing), home nursing (prohibitively expensive) or you as the carer (bye-bye, life) - are easiest left in the sand. But there is another option: the multigenerational household, or a return to the fabled extended family, where the caring is shared.  Justin Green, 41, lives with eight other family members, with some 97 years' age gap between them. There is his wife, Jenny, 36, their three children, Toby, 9, Jamie, 6, and Fleur, 3. There is his father, Jeremy, 76, his grandmother, Joyce, 100, and his mother's parents, Ian, 90, and Wendy, 91. at Christmas, it's dinner for 20, when Justin and Jenny's brothers and broods descend. Running a country hotel, Ballyvolane House, near Cork, which Green inherited from Jeremy while the hand was still warm, so to speak, there's room for all. Joyce has her own apartment - while she's incredibly healthy, she's growing forgetful and is "like a fourth child", Jenny says. She needs a lot of minding as she might forget to put another log on the fire or feed herself (Jenny gives her a hot meal daily). Meanwhile, Wendy and Ian live in their own house on the estate.  Green, whose previous job was running Babington House, Nick Jones's private members' club and hotel in Somerset, returned to the fold after his mother died. "The main reason was to ensure the older generation was happy," he explains. and, he adds, it's wonderful for the children to see the whole process. "I think it's very important to see the older generation respected." What's more, the children get to reap all those years of wisdom, as well as training in old-fashioned manners and, no doubt, some toffee-pushing to boot. "The children learn a lot from them, and the grandparents get a huge kick from being able to provide that," Green says.  Yet supporting the older generations is not easy: they may have the rambling property, but, financially, "everything is against us", Green says. They've also sacrificed their own personal space. Green could, he says, return to Jones's empire and "shut the door, but it's not about the bottom line - I feel I have a responsibly to do this".  Of course, life at the Greens has its "moments" - but, despite it all, they say that the rewards more than compensate. "It's very satisfying to see everyone being looked after," Green says. "We're all great friends - it's a social life to us. I hope the kids will do the same for us." Would you?  ballyvolanehouse.ie  COHOUSING, THE EaSY WaY TO LIVE IN a COMMUNE  Imagine if you could choose your neighbours. Imagine splitting the swimming pool costs with them, or if they'd baby-sit your kids, or share the gardening and harvest with you; if they cooked you the odd meal. Previously, the only route to this was to live in a commune.  Now, with climate change, pinched purses and a renewed hunger for community, a new utopia hovers on the horizon: cohousing, or the cul-de-sac commune. From th 