Essay exploring deeper implications of remaining childfree

In this essay for the Guardian, Lionel Shriver describes her role as the Anti-Mom. Shriver's latest novel was a tale of motherhood gone awry that drew fire for being anti-family, letters of appreciation from mothers of horrible children, and support from childfree readers who felt the book validated their decision. Yet this piece is not a self-affirmation, but an exploration of the guilt and ambivalence Shriver now feels, at age 48, for forgoing parenting. An interesting and thoughtful read. Here's a nibble:

Rather than economics, the engine driving Europe's "birth dearth" is existential.

To be almost ridiculously sweeping: baby boomers and their offspring have shifted emphasis from the communal to the individual, from the future to the present, from virtue to personal satisfaction. Increasingly secular, we pledge allegiance to lower-case gods of our private devising. We are less concerned with leading a good life than the good life. We are less likely than our predecessors to ask ourselves whether we serve a greater social purpose; we are more likely to ask if we are happy. We shun values such as self-sacrifice and duty as the pitfalls of suckers. We give little thought to the perpetuation of lineage, culture or nation; we take our heritage for granted. We are ahistorical. We measure the value of our lives within the brackets of our own births and deaths, and don't especially care what happens once we're dead. As we age - oh, so reluctantly! - we are apt to look back on our pasts and ask not 'Did I serve family, God and country?' but 'Did I ever get to Cuba, or run a marathon? Did I take up landscape painting? Was I fat?' We will assess the success of our lives in accordance not with whether they were righteous, but with whether they were interesting and fun.