Selfish, Shallow and Self-absorbed edited by Meghan Daum

"The other move put on you by the parenting lobby is that you should have kids because you might regret not doing so when you get older. This seems demented and irrelevant in equal measure since while life may not have a purpose, it certainly has consequences, one of which is the accumulation of a vast, coastal shelf of uncut, 100-percent-pure regret. And this will happen whether you have no kids, one kid, or a dozen. When it comes to regret, everyone's a winner! I think I was about fourteen when I was obliged to swallow my first substantial helping of regret. I would like to claim that it was also my last, but it turned out to be the opening course of a never-ending feast. If I've never forgotten the taste, that is because under- or overcooked regret is the main dish--the very taste--of adulthood."