Growing too old to remember childhood?

So here's a dilemma: I think I've become one of those mothers who parents without remembering what it was like to be a child. I *think*

Here's the lowdown.

I became a mother at the ripe old age of 22. I was young and I thought, 'wow! I can remember what it was like to be a teenager! I will be such a good parent of a teenager! I will be so much better than older moms will be! I will never ever act towards my kid without trying to understand her!' Ah, those were the days. 

In my early 20s, since I was a mother, the fact that I was young didn't stand in the way of interacting with other mothers who were old enough to be my mother. I can remember conversations I had with those who had children 5 or ten years older than Grace. Children who were already teenagers. And I would think, 'you sillies! You don't understand your kids! Here, I will enlighten you with my insight because I understand your teenager!'

A-ha. It took only years of parenting for me to realize how gracious and kind and tolerant those other mothers were being with me. I am so thankful that they wanted my friendship despite my naivety and arrogance. When I realized this, I took on a new mantra. Any time you think you've had enough experience as a parent to understand everything there is to know about parenting, go talk to someone whose kids are at least five years older than your own. Hopefully adhering to this mantra has prevented even more of the 20/20 hindsight realizations of my unabashed stupidity.

Fast forward to the present. I now have a teenager, and I teach college students. As much as the college-age population would like not to hear what I'm about to say, here goes. I have always thought my students were more like my daughter than like me. That is, a 19-year-old student seemed to me to be more like a 11, 12, or 13-year-old than like me as a 30-something. Many a graduate student while teaching just sees herself as a senior version of the demographic. Not so with me. I was over 30-years-old when I started my PhD studies, and my students were hardly ever in my generation. In fact, my colleagues in the graduate program weren't really my generation.

In recent conversations, an early 20-something who has some knowledge of me and Grace has been criticizing my parenting of Grace. Things like, I should let Grace watch a more varied bit on TV and in movies. And I should let her have more freedom and not worry about where she is all the time. And that I should just realize that Grace's performance in school is fine, she's a smart kid and she'll do fine eventually. The commentary is not such a big deal, because the 20-something is not someone who will matter one iota in the long run. It's sort of like someone at the laundromat observing your child for the 3 hours it takes to do your laundry and then picking up conversation with you. The bystander's opinion doesn't really matter at all, but nonetheless, their opinion may rile you.

How does this affect me? Unfortunately I hear the refrain of my own early-20-something self in this commentary. I am now facing the question, am I out of touch with what it is to be a teenager and have wholesale bought into the 'mother' role, or was I just terrifically naive and arrogant as a young adult? In short, was I right then or am I right now? Was I ever right? Am I just completely lost on this one? I can't really decide.