We are wealthier, we live further from our parents and our values are changing but there is little evidence that we are any more selfish today than in the past. On the contrary as individuals have earned more, they give more time and money to charitable causes. Even as families spread out, people are continuing to support their parents and it is costing them more. The notion that we should return to traditional values is misleading.  While our collective selfishness is a noble concern, it is overblown. 
People are giving and more than ever, they are giving to strangers. Following the 2004 tsunami, billions of dollars were allocated by governments to help the region rebuild. In response to the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan China, more than 1.5 billion dollars in aid was raised by individual donors and many billions more were set aside by the government. In Haiti, following the 2009 earthquake countries from around the world sent food, water and medical assistance to the victims of the catastrophe, and more than 5 billion dollars have been pledged for rebuilding. There are also a growing number of charities the world over. In the United States which closely tracks charities and NGOs for tax purposes, there are now almost one million registered charities, this is a 50 percent increase from 10 years ago. There has been a global boom in the number of charitable organizations. Charities and other nonprofit organizations demonstrate that people are willing to donate money and time to causes they feel are important. While it is difficult to measure generosity, it is clear that people are giving. 
Not only do people give through donations to disaster victims and charities, they are giving more to their families. Todays generation will sacrifice more to take care of their parents than any generation before them. This is a result of medicine and demographics. Advances in medicine have lengthened life expectancy. Todays youth will be taking care of their parents longer and this care will come at greater expense.  The drugs and medical procedures the elderly require are expensive. There will also be fewer children to care for their parents. Globally birthrates are declining. According to United Nations population growth statistics, the number of children per women has fallen from 4.92 in 1955 to 2.82 in 2000. Some countries are feeling the decline in fertility more acutely than others; Japan for instance now has a shrinking population. The ways that children take care of their parents varies from country to country and culture to culture. Some children will support their parents by paying into government programs which provide medical and financial support for the elderly; some children will support their parents by bringing them into their homes. Regardless of how todays youth will take care of their parents, they will be doing if for longer and at greater personal sacrifice than any generation before them. 
The idea of traditional values is often used but doesnt have universal meaning, in many cases traditional values are arguably a modern invention. Generally traditional values suggest a return to values we held in the past. In practice this is nearly impossible to do. For starters it is difficult to know the values of our ancestors. There are few records which show what our forebears actually believed. In instances where such documents exist, we often fail to contextualize them. Our values are in part a product of our circumstances. When we take values from the past and use them to address modern problems they are no longer traditional values because they are being used out of context in untraditional ways. 
We see this in practice in the United States where the term traditional values has been defined and is embraced by conservative Christians. Organizations like the Traditional Values Coalition make the claim that traditional values are derived from the bible. They use religious texts to support conservative positions on issues from immigration to reproductive rights.  To use the bible to justify a position on tax policy is very untraditional. Fiscal policy is not addressed in the bible and to suggest that the bible can inform anyones opinion on the subject is untenable. In the United States traditional values is a pseudonym for conservative values and has no actual basis in the beliefs of our forefathers. In this context traditional values are just as much a construct of modern times as liberal values and therefore cant be returned to. 
To conclude, there is little evidence to support the notion that people have become any greedier or that we should return to our traditional values. It is easier than ever to donate money and people are donating. Modern altruism is most visible in our response to natural disasters and the growing number of charities we support. We do care for our parents. As people live longer and have fewer children, we are caring for our parents at greater sacrifice. Given that were not greedier and we still care about family it would be mistake to return to traditional values especially when it isnt clear what the term means. Humanity does have a long tradition of doubting our own morality. While concerns about our collective generosity are unfounded it is comforting to see that the human tradition of self criticism continues.