PAST IS PROLOGUE

Am I a Millennial or Gen Z?

What does it mean to be part of a generation?

Photo of the author as a child circa 2000, playing with Pokémon and Polly Pockets in her closet

In late 2019, I started teaching in an Irish high school. At 24, I didn’t feel all that different from the 13-year-olds I was mentoring at first, but it soon became clear that we were very different. My references went over their heads — even to what I thought were current, mainstream…