WE know about cocooning now all right. If you are, or if you know anyone who is, 70 years of age or older, cocooning is part of your life these days.

Until very recently, if you knew anything about a cocoon, you probably knew it either as one of Ron Howard’s early movies, or as the protective case in which a butterfly magically metamorphoses. These days, it’s something in which your dad has to live.