Chasing Independence

Growing Old in the Shadow of an American Ideal

How independence works as an unquestioned ideal for aging in America—and why it is never quite realized

In twenty-first-century America, as people live longer than ever before, it’s taken for granted that older adults should be active and self-reliant. News stories describe nonagenarians who run marathons, reality shows feature attractive older women competing for the love of a widowed bachelor, and policymakers encourage aging "in place” rather than in a nursing home. In Chasing Independence, Guillermina Altomonte turns a critical eye on these expectations and asks what happens when independence becomes the yardstick by which we measure the quality of old age. Drawing on ethnographic observations in a skilled nursing facility in New York City, interviews with older adults and healthcare workers, and historical materials, she shows how independence operates as an unquestioned standard for medical assessments, allocation of services, and even as a way to determine an older person’s identity and self-worth.

Despite the elevation of independence as the dominant ideal of aging, Altomonte reports, it is always a moving target, redefined and pushed out of reach by individual, economic, and social constraints. She examines the immense effort that older people, their families, and healthcare workers invest as they chase independence—and what happens when those efforts fall short. Exploring the conundrums and dramas, the meanings and connections that older people experience in the relentless struggle to maintain independence, Altomonte shows that the American obsession with this cultural value often obscures real needs for support and care.

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