There’s nothing quite like the first time a child will smile, look up at you with big eyes, and then proceed to ask what year you were born in.

It’s understandable, their obsession with age. It places you in a timeframe in their minds, trying to put you in a certain box. Are you as old as their parents? Or as ancient as their grandparents? Are you like the teachers at school that still go by Miss?

I guess what I’m trying to say is, when did we get so old?

A few days ago, I was babysitting a group of preteens, who thought it was hilarious to start quoting commercials (it wasn’t). I played along, though, and added my two cents, about Geico being so easy a caveman could do it.

They just stared at me.

In that moment, I realized how old I appeared in their eyes. I go to college, I drive a car, and I have no curfew. I may as well be a space alien for all they know.

I was born into a world on the edge of a technological revolution. I took pictures with disposable cameras, not camera phones. I had to memorize names and numbers, not just input them into my contact list. If I wanted to watch a cartoon, I had to hope it would be on that day, because recording TV meant taping over a home movie.

In a way, I suppose I’m just nostalgic for the simpler times.

But on the flip side, I’m grateful to have been born when I was.

I may not have had an iPad to entertain me as a child, but I was still a part of the first generation to really have access to all these new gadgets. I never had to wait, because every year was a new advancement.

We had a big computer that took up half the desk when I was a child. That got replaced by a laptop so bulky I swear it may have done better as a bat. Then a newer, thinner laptop, and another one after that was even thinner than the first when it came out.

Nowadays, laptops have touch screens, and have so many bells and whistles that I often find myself worried to press a certain button.

I do remember the past, but I remember it as I go along on my way to the future.

I think most of my generation—of our generation—feels like I do. We were the last ones to live in a world where one’s phone was not an extra organ. We saw how history unfolded before our eyes, and the amazing part of it is, we barely recognized it at the time.

Yes, I seem like I’m from a different planet sometimes to these younger kids. It’s not on purpose, it’s just the time I grew up in is so vastly different from their own, right now, in this moment.

So, the next time I’m asked what year I was born in, I’ll answer happily that it’s none of their business and I’m young enough to still be tech savvy.