Why Guardianship Matters

Guardianship saved my grandmother.

Brooke Astor—philanthropist, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom—was being abused and financially exploited by her only child, my father. In 2006, I petitioned a New York court to place her under guardianship. The petition was granted. With the help of many, we saved her. I was proud of that. For years, I defended guardianship as a necessary tool—a lifeline for vulnerable adults who could no longer protect themselves.

My position has changed. Not because guardianship failed my grandmother—it didn't. But because of what I have witnessed since.

On August 25, 2022, New York State Senators George Borrello and Anthony Palumbo convened a Guardianship Round Table Public Hearing in New York City. Twelve witnesses testified. All but one—me—had tried, and largely failed, to save a loved one from guardianship abuse and exploitation. The hearing was scheduled for ninety minutes. It ran for nearly four hours. Senators and staffers extended it, guided by concern and sensitivity to what they were hearing. Some witnesses wept. None have stopped fighting.

That day changed the direction of my work. This publication is the result.

What follows is not an argument against guardianship. It is an argument for doing it right—and an honest accounting of how badly, and how often, we currently fall short. These pages situate the guardianship crisis within the broader social failure of ageism: the quiet, systemic devaluation of older adults that makes exploitation not only possible but predictable. They examine the legal frameworks that were designed to protect vulnerable people and ask why, in too many states, those frameworks have become the source of harm rather than the remedy for it.

This is also a personal journey. The same system I once trusted to protect my grandmother is the system I now watch fail people every day—people whose families arrive at courthouses full of faith in the law and leave years later, exhausted and emptied out, having lost not only the fight but sometimes the person they came to protect.

If you are reading this because someone you love is already inside this system, you will find here what I wish I had found earlier: honest information, the relevant law, and the names of people and organizations who are fighting to change things.

If you are reading this because you are simply paying attention—because you understand that any of us may one day be old, or ill, or unable to speak for ourselves—then you already understand the stakes.

They are not abstract. They are the lives of citizens who trusted the law—and found that trust was the very thing that made them vulnerable.

Essays —

•  What Guardianship Is—and How It Can Go Wrong

• "Guardianship is a blunt force instrument" 

• My Pivot: Why I Am Advocating for the Reform of the System I Used 

• How Guardianship Became a Federal Priority 

• The Human Cost: What Guardianship Abuse Actually Looks Like

Image: DNRT Frank Knowles –Little River Preserve, Dartmouth, MA