In 2017 the Liverpool Echo reported a story that travelled around the world within days: Ada Keating, aged 98, had moved into Moss View, a care home in Liverpool, so that she could be near her eldest son Tom, who was 80 and had been living there for about a year. Mother and son, both in residential care, were back under the same roof, and Ada was still doing what she had done all her life, checking that Tom was all right.
It is a small, local story, but it touches on something many families now face. People are living longer than ever, which means more parents in their nineties have children who are themselves pensioners. Here is what was reported about Ada and Tom, why their arrangement made sense, and what it says about care in very old age.
Who Ada and Tom Keating are
Ada and her late husband Harry raised four children in Liverpool: Tom, Barbara, Margi and Janet. Janet died at just 13. Ada herself worked as an auxiliary nurse, the kind of hands-on caring job that shaped how she saw her role in the family.
Tom spent his working life as a painter and decorator, for many years with HE Simm, a building services firm on Prescot Road, until he retired. When his health meant he needed more day-to-day support, he moved into Moss View, a home that offers residential and nursing care.
Ada, according to the report, missed having him close. When she moved into the same home the following year, the two were reunited, and by every account they settled in happily together.
The photographs released with the story show the two side by side on a sofa in one of the home's lounges, Ada in a pale yellow cardigan and Tom in a dark jumper. It is a scene that will look familiar to anyone who has visited a parent or grandparent in care.
Ada leaning in to hug her son. Ada told reporters she calls in on Tom's room every night to say goodnight, and again in the morning to say good morning.
A day at Moss View
What made the story land was not a dramatic event but its ordinariness. Mother and son were said to spend much of their time together, playing games together and sitting down to watch Emmerdale, the long-running ITV soap. Ada said she loved going to his room every night to say goodnight.
Tom, who never married and had always lived with his mother before moving into care, said she was very good at looking after him, and that she still told him to behave himself now and then.
The two seated in a lounge at Moss View. Being in the same building let them keep a shared routine without either having to travel, something that matters a great deal when both people are frail.
Tom bending down to hold his mother in a long embrace. Ada was 98 at the time, and the photos make clear how much shorter and smaller she had become beside her son.
Laughing together on the sofa. Many readers who commented on the story said the smile on Ada's face reminded them of their own mothers or grandmothers.
A close-up of their hands, Ada's resting over Tom's. Physical touch is one of the simplest comforts in later life, and care staff often encourage family members to keep it up.
Ada and Tom with younger members of the family on a visit to the home. Having both of them in one place also made it easier for relatives to see them together.
The video of mother and son
A short film of the pair was shared alongside the coverage. It shows the same easy companionship as the photographs: two very old people, one of them the other's parent, simply enjoying each other's company.
Why this story struck a chord
Much of the reaction came from people who know the reality of caring for someone in very old age. Below are a few of the public comments posted on the newspaper's Facebook page, kept here as they were shared.
One reader remembered Tom living a few doors from her grandmother, and Ada knitting teddies and dolls for local children years ago, a reminder that this was a well-known family in its own neighbourhood.
Another commenter described the story as a welcome piece of good news at a time when headlines felt heavy.
Several people wrote that a mother's love does not stop when a child grows up, a theme that ran through almost every response.
Others put it in plainer terms: however old children get, they remain their mother's babies.
The most telling comment came from a reader who works in a nursing home. She pointed out that many residents receive no visitors at all, and that loneliness is often harder to see than illness. Ada and Tom, by contrast, had each other.
Older parents caring for older children
Ada and Tom's situation is less unusual than it sounds. In the UK, the Office for National Statistics estimates that around 645,000 people in the UK were aged 90 or over in 2025, more than half as many again as in 2005. That means a growing number of families where a parent in their nineties has a son or daughter in their seventies or eighties, sometimes with health needs of their own.
Care homes have traditionally been organised room by room, with each resident admitted on their own assessment. Placing relatives together is not always possible: it depends on vacancies, on each person's care needs and on funding decisions. When it can be arranged, staff and families often report real benefits, from shared routines to fewer anxious phone calls.
Loneliness is a well-documented problem in later life. Charities such as Age UK warn that loneliness can come to define people's lives and harm their wellbeing, especially as they get older. Simple companionship, the kind Ada and Tom had over a soap opera and a game, is one of the most effective protections there is.
What families can take from it
Not every family can or should copy this arrangement, and living apart does not mean caring less. Still, the story offers a few practical ideas for anyone supporting elderly relatives:
- Ask about shared placements. If two relatives both need care, it is worth asking local homes and the council whether they can be placed in the same home, or at least the same area.
- Keep routines going. A favourite programme, a regular game or a nightly goodnight can carry over into a care setting and make it feel like home.
- Visit, call and touch. Short, frequent contact tends to matter more than occasional long visits.
- Talk to professionals. Decisions about care needs and moving homes are best made with the GP, social workers and the home's staff, so that everyone's health is properly looked after.
Above all, the Keatings' story is a reminder that being someone's parent is not a job that ends at 18. At 98, Ada was still checking that her boy was safe at bedtime.
For another look at how we remember our mothers, see Illustrations About Mothers and the Small Acts of Care We Remember.
Sources: Liverpool Echo: Mum aged 98 moves into care home to look after her son, 80; Office for National Statistics: Ageing; Coventry Telegraph (syndicated report): Mum aged 98 moves into care home; ITV News Granada, 29 October 2017; Age UK: Loneliness. Photos and video as published with the original 2017 coverage.
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