I understand your your reason to exclude childhood growing however...
I first start growing carnivores was ten years ago when I was ten. However, studying them as a hobby started a year or two before that due to the wonderful wild D. rotundifolia you can find in my area. My first batch of plants was S. purpurea, D. muscipula, D. capensis, D. californica, and N. ventricosa. Not surprisingly the plants all died one by one with surprisingly, the cobra lily lasting the longest only after the D. capensis which survived for years.
So that was my child hood experience that is excluded, however I struggle to exclude it because my capensis lived until I re-ented the hobby after I had gotten through the worst of my teenage angsty years. So in a way, my growing of CP's never stopped. (thanks to capensis.
)
But the rebirth of my interest started with a N. bicalcarata that I purchased four years ago.
So in short:
Ten years if we're counting capensis and wild dews.
But four years since I really lit the flame back up again.
And pretty much one or two years since I let all shame go and started buying plants hither and thither without forethought.