Forced To Be Right Handed

[cart]

Since left handed threads seem to be popular at the moment, I thought I'd raise this issue.

I was dimly aware that in the "olden days", left handedness was considered bad, and children would be generally forced to write with their right hands. But every so often I have been amazed to learn that this has happened to people at least as young as me (I am 32).

Has anyone here had any direct experience of this - either being forced or even being the forcer? In the latter case I would be particularly interested to hear your motivations.

[Harborwolf]

That happened to me for a little while. They made me go to writing therapy when I was in elementary school. They later gave up and released my because I was a stubborn little pain in the butt.
I'm 25, so I'm afraid it's happened to people younger than you.

[kitarak]

And the ages get even younger. It happened to me and I'm 19. I wasn't forced to be left handed out of any sense of "Being left handed is bad. You must learn to use your right hand!", it simply never occured to anyone that I might be left handed. My teachers at that stage weren't the brightest sparks around... I didn't realise it at the time either - I'm not sure I was even aware that it was possible. I just thought I was lacking in coordination (which I am). Years later I went to see an educational psychiatrist about a (mostly) unrelated issue, and she observed for some reason that I was probably left handed originally.

[Granuaile]

And younger still. My aunt and I got into a hassle about my 16 mo. using her left hand while eating. "Oh! She's left handed. You need to do something about that before she gets older! It's bad luck!" I cut this off at the pass by explaining that kids this age are ambidextrous. My family has a history of forcing kids to be right handed. My 32 yr old cousin had to wear a baseball glove while learning to write and my 28 yr old brother had to wear an oven mitt for a while. Naturally, their handwriting stinks.
Luckily, I don't think this "tradition" has been successfully passed down.

[Master Wang-Ka]

It is nice to hear that stupidity was only a tradition, and not genetic, in your family.

WHY was it considered necessary to abuse lefties into becoming righties? My wife (a lefty) was never pressed to become a righty -- both her parents are lefties -- but she tells stories about her late mother, who took holy hell as a child for writing left handed.

As an adult, she was ambidextrous, and could write with either hand. Handy, perhaps, but hardly worth the abuse...

[Incubus]

I suppose its because our world (largely) seems to cater to righties, and maybe they are trying to get the person to avoid the hassle of being a minority early on. I know that like 95% of the desks at my school are right-handed desks for example. I think its dumb- its extremely cruel to force someone to alter something that comes naturally to them like favoring one hand over another.

[Xavier]

Yeah, though I am right handed I find myself to be freakishly strong with my left. Makes you ponder on lost opportunities (I had a damn good pitchin' hand, mind you!)

[Washte]

31 yo here.

As a kid many things were done left handed. My folks tried to get me to do things right handed. Was teased by other family members for being a lefty. In school they made my learn to write right handed.

In high school my right hand was busted, so had to re-learn being left handed - didn't take long. Now after many problems with my right hand I am fairly left handed again - ambidextrous really.

[LifeOnWry]

Left = sinister, at least according to some Latin thingie I vaguely remember reading about 20 years ago.

I was ambidextrous until a 1st grade teacher asked me if I was left- or right-handed. When I replied that I didn't know, she explained that she needed to know this so she could issue me the correct pair of scissors. She also pointed out that she had only three pairs of left-handed scissors. So I told her I'd take whatever pair was left after the rest of the class received theirs. As it turned out, we had three lefties, so I'm right-handed by default. However, I shoot bow & arrow left-handed (well, really left-eyed) and I bowl and bat better with my left.

[Guinastasia]

George VI of England was left-handed and forced to be a righty from a very young age. Many blame this for his horriblly severe stuttering.

[CuriousCanuck]

Lefty here too. I'm 26 and when I started KP in 1980 I was made to hold my right hand behind my back. But I was stubborn and they let me go leftie. My mom told me that when I was 4-5 I used to start printing with my left hand then switch to the right when I was half way across the page. But now I am 90% lefty, though I do throw a frisbee and snowboard as a righty...

[Llama Llogophile]

I had an old math teacher in junior high who always wrote on the board with her right hand, but with her left hand gripping the back of her belt or pants.

We asked her about this (in our ever so delicate adolescent manner), and she told us she was made to be right handed when she was young. Her teachers trained her to put her left hand back there while she was writing, and smacked her with rulers if she tried to use it.

[monstro]

My parents say I was left-handed when I was a toddler, but when I hit nursery school I was "converted" by mean teachers. But it was an incomplete conversion, if it happened. Even though I am righty now, I'm an awkward one. For instance, to this day I cannot hold my pencil the "right" way and people laugh at me. I'm serious; my whole self-esteem was lowered in the second grade when my teacher announced to the class that I would never be able to do cursive.

There's a cool way to figure out how your mind is wired. Hold your finger in front of your face and look at it. Then, close your left eye. If it moves, then it means you are supposed to be right-handed. If it doesn't, it means you're left-handed. I feel bad because based on this test I'm right-handed, which means either 1) my parents were wrong about me being left-handed and thus I'm not *special* or 2) those creepy teachers pulled a serious number on me back in nursery school and messed up my brain!

[Shirley Ujest]

My brother is the only leftie in the family.

At school the nuns told him it was a sign of the devil. He is 43

His hand writing, ftr, now is atrocious.

[BoBettie]

I am 32 years old and I was forced to be right handed in kindergarten and first grade. After that I wrote and cut right handed on my own. I have horrific handwriting and cannot draw a straight line to save my life. My hand hurts if I write for long, and I don't hold a pen correctly, no matter how I try to do it.

I am at a loss as to why they did this, but I recall it clearly- my crayons and pencils were constantly taken from my left hand and put in my right and I was reprimanded for using left handed scissors (yes, they had them, but they were taken away whenever I tried to use them). Very bizzare and to this day no one seems to have an answer of why this was done to me. I pisses me off, though. The very idea of taking away someone's natural instinct of left and right handedness just seems so wrong.

[Gorsnak]

Originally posted by monstro
There's a cool way to figure out how your mind is wired. Hold your finger in front of your face and look at it. Then, close your left eye. If it moves, then it means you are supposed to be right-handed. If it doesn't, it means you're left-handed. I feel bad because based on this test I'm right-handed, which means either 1) my parents were wrong about me being left-handed and thus I'm not *special* or 2) those creepy teachers pulled a serious number on me back in nursery school and messed up my brain!

Actually, that test will only tell you which eye is dominant, and if I'm not misunderstanding you, the way you have it set up, you're asserting that right-handers are left-eye dominant, which is not as I recall a particularly common combination. In any event, eye dominance doesn't correlate very strongly with hand dominance. I'm left-handed and right-eyed, myself, and my hand dominance is fairly strong.

[monstro]

I got the information from a psychologist who I work with. She asserted that the two in fact are related. But since this is her word, not mine, it's no skin off my tit if it's wrong information.

[Hello Again]

I'm right handed and legally blind my left eye (I have 20/50 in my right. No, I have never seen in stereo)

But anyway, my dad went to an orthodox religious school through the 12th grade, where he wasn't allowed be be left handed. They may have tied his right arm behind his back to train him up. He continues to write right-handed to this day, but he is ambidextrous about a lot of things.

On the other hand, I'm right handed, yet I can only bat left-handed (or do any sport involving a swinging motion). All because my brother taught me at an impressionable age... and he's left handed! If I try to do it right-handed it feels wrong, and I just can't organize my body to do it.

[Guinastasia]

I remember in kindergarten we were in music class and I was playing a triangle. I was using my left-hand, even though I'm right-handed, and the teacher corrected me. I don't know why, though-maybe I just wasn't thinking, because I've never tried to use my left hand for anything else.

[Washte]

Another way to tell which hand is dominant is to do this:
Clasp both hands together interlacing the fingers. Whichever thumb is on top is your dominant hand. It may also feel weird trying to do it the other way.

[cart]

Thanks for all your replies. It's very interesting to see how widespread this practice is, and nobody seems to have a clear idea why it was done to them.

Originally posted by Incubus
I suppose its because our world (largely) seems to cater to righties, and maybe they are trying to get the person to avoid the hassle of being a minority early on.

This is possibly the nearest you can get to a rational explanation. But even this doesn't make much sense. Although there are a handful of tools that are marginally easier for right handers to use, there aren't any serious disadvantages to being left handed.

As for being a minority, there are probably at least as many left handers in the world as there are Americans, and in any case we could well be the world's least opressed minority. Generally the most oppressive thing that happens to us is to be forced to use the wrong hand.

What oppression could George VI have been expected to face?

Originally posted by Shirley Ujest
At school the nuns told him it was a sign of the devil.

Originally posted by Hello Again
But anyway, my dad went to an orthodox religious school through the 12th grade, where he wasn't allowed be be left handed.

These suggest that there is some religious aspect to it. Does anyone know of a biblical passage that prohibits left handedness?

I would still like to hear from someone who does insist children write with their right hand - whether they are a teacher or a parent, maybe they can shed some light on the issue. I understand that it may be a hard thing to own up to, but there are people on this board who aren't slow to express far more illiberal ideas, so don't be shy. I would be very interested to know what it's all about.

[Geek Mecha]

Originally posted by Washte
Another way to tell which hand is dominant is to do this:
Clasp both hands together interlacing the fingers. Whichever thumb is on top is your dominant hand. It may also feel weird trying to do it the other way.

I just tried that, and my left hand won. When I put my right hand on top, that felt weird. I'm right handed, always have been, and never was trained out of lefthandedness.

For those of you who had the left handedness trained out of you, have you ever tried learning to write with your left hands? I mean, if it feels odd and your handwriting could be better, wouldn't it be worth the time and effort to start writing with your left hand?

[Flutterby]

According to Monstro's test I'm left handed. According to Washte's I'm left handed as well, though when I make my hands go the other way it feels only slightly weird. Perhaps I'm ambidextrous?

I do a lot of things with both hands, but writing I've always done with my right hand. I do hold my pencil 'weird' with my right hand. Always have, but I don't recall ever being forced to used my right. Writing with my left hand *just did a test* I can write legibly, though it looks more like my 3rd grade printing when I do. If I hold it a little differently I can make it even more legible, it looks more like 4th/5th grade printing. So if I practice with my left hand I can probably get up to the proficiency my right is now.

And I seem to recall it being a myth that left handedness was 'evil' and 'of the devil'.

The only mention of the left hand possibly being evil that I can find in the bible is Matthew 25:41-42 KJV Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: etc etc. All the rest I scanned appears that the left hand was holy. Priests used their left hands specifically for bendictions and such. (I used bible.com searching for 'left hand')

It is quite possible that people took that verse and decided that those who were left handed were the ones who refused Jesus and thus being left handed meant you refused Jesus in your life. So they had to 'beat' it out of you and bring you back to God. Just a theory. People take bible verses out of context all the time.

[CrazyCatLady]

My older brother was trained to be left-handed. The doctors broke his collarbone and dislocated his left shoulder trying to get him out, and they told Mom he'd have nerve damage and probably never use that hand (or even arm) properly. So when the cast came off, she spent a lot of time trying to get him to use his left hand and arm. We think she must have overdone it, because now he's left-handed but writes about like a leftie forced be right-handed.

[aleksia]

How odd that you brought that up. I don't know anyone else whom this has happened. At least not anyone else alive.
So, right now I'm 21 years old.
When I was a toddler, I showed certain signs of lefthandedness. Grabbing things with left hand, drawing. Since my mother traveled a lot, I was mostly brought up by great grandmother.
Mother tells that one day, when she returned from a trip (maybe month long) she finds her small child paddling happily around - left hand in a sling. Of course she panicks, wondering that maybe I broke a bone or something, storms to great grandmother...
"Well, she was lefthanded."
"...?"
"In our family, NOBODY is lefthanded."
Yes. Thank you. Not anymore there isn't.
I used to be ambidexterous for awhile, but now it's all gone. Righthanded klutz with hideous handwriting and no hope to learn to draw decently.
But really like to whine about it.

[SGXV]

i'm fifteen and my dad switched me for "religious and cultural" reasons from my left to my right from the get go and i just found out and am now training myself to write type and do pretty much everything with my left hand like this i typed it with my left hand alone

[drewtwo99]

SGXV, if you were a zombie, would you still want to do things with your left hand?

[AClockworkMelon]

I'm aware this is a zombie, but that finger-lacing test is crap. I'm completely useless with my left hand but when I fold my hands my left thumb always wins out.

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by Shirley Ujest

My brother is the only leftie in the family.

At school the nuns told him it was a sign of the devil. He is 43

His hand writing, ftr, now is atrocious.

Catholic kindergarden, yup. Whacking the hand with rulers, yup. Craptastic writing with both hands now, yup. I was born in 1961.

[Inner Stickler]

Originally Posted by AClockworkMelon

I'm aware this is a zombie, but that finger-lacing test is crap. I'm completely useless with my left hand but when I fold my hands my left thumb always wins out.

And I'm a leftie who folds his hands with the right thumb on top. Give me back my handfolding, ya dirty dextrous thief!

[robardin]

I'm left-handed but write and use chopsticks with my right hand, because that's how I was taught. My handwriting seems OK to me (if not great), and when I got around at some point to trying to write with my left hand, it was about as good with a bit of practice but much slower (since I wasn't used to it) so why bother. Similarly I can, if I bother to, use chopsticks with my left hand, but my left hand and forearm muscles are underused for that purpose and it's too slow to be worth my effort to train up on. Plus, the reason for the chopsticks handedness is practical: sitting next to someone eating with their right hand, elbows would crash and chopsticks might even lock

I do sports with my left hand - throw baseballs, shoot basketballs, bowl, hold a fencing foil, tennis or racquetball racket, etc., - as well as kick with my left foot. But at various points in my life I've been forced by circumstance to take instruction "as a righty". One summer I played baseball with a borrowed righty glove for 2 weeks because I'd lost mine and there weren't any other lefties, and I was too scared to tell my parents I'd lost my own (I'd only had it for 3 weeks). Another time, I took a couple of "introduction to fencing" classes as part of a group of about 20 people where all the foils were righty. I later enrolled in another class where I bought my own equipment and became a lefty (the instructor suggested I do this if I were serious about learning fencing, since lefty fencers often have a slight advantage). I don't think the 2 weeks of instruction as a righty hampered me at all.

[congodwarf]

I got all excited when I saw Master Wang-Ka had posted and then a little sad when I looked at the date. Sigh.




Anyway, my sister was not forced to be a righty and she figured out the most comfortable way for her to write on her own. She ended up holding a pen the same way I do even though she uses her left hand. She's the only left-handed person I've met who doesn't curve the hand at all when writing. I know there must be others but I haven't met them. She is 34.

[california jobcase]

My mom says I was left-handed when I entered first grade and right-handed after. I really don't remember that, but I do remember never getting good grades in writing (penmanship). I also had a hard time learning which side was left and which is right- I still have to pause a bit to think about it sometimes, and I'm 51 now. I taught school for 26 years, and sometimes would unthinkingly pick up the chalk in my left hand and try to write with it. It may be that I'm really right-handed but mom had me using my left since she's a lefty. My brother's a lefty, and both of my sisters get their rights and lefts confused sometimes also.

[Motorgirl]

I can't say why people still do it, other than to guess that old habits die hard, but in the Christian world there used to be a pervasive association between evil/sin and the left hand.

Dig Jesus casting the damned into Hell with his left hand.

[Barkis is Willin']

I know a Japanese man who is left handed. He is about 35. He said when he was a child and would hold chopsticks or a pencil in his left hand, his mother would smack him. Hard. According to him, it had pretty serious repercussions on his emotional/mental stability. Did not sound pleasant.

Don't these parents understand if they can just teach the child to throw a baseball with any kind of velocity, they'll be rolling in money? Left handed pitching is a premium.

[Shodan]

Originally Posted by Motorgirl

I can't say why people still do it, other than to guess that old habits die hard, but in the Christian world there used to be a pervasive association between evil/sin and the left hand.

I think it pre-dates Christianity.

I heard it started among cultures that did not use toilet paper. Thus you would wipe your butt with the left hand, and reserve the right for everything else.

I do everything right-handed except grip for judo. There I am a leftie. Nobody forced me - I just tried it and found it gives an advantage, since most people are not used to gripping kenka yotsu where one fighter grips with the left hand on the collar and the right on the sleeve, and the other fighter grips the collar with his right and the sleeve with his left. I use the same left-leg forward stance for striking practice, which is orthodox for most striking styles (except jeet kune do), so it blends better for the transition from striking distance to grappling distance.

Regards,
Shodan

[eclectic wench]

I was reading some mommy board, maybe a year ago, and there was a woman there asking for advice because her husband wanted to force their toddler to quit being left-handed. She wasn't sure whether this was a good idea or not.

As far as I can remember, his rationale was that it was 'weird' and the toddler would grow up to 'feel weird' because the rest of the family was right-handed. There may have been more, but it was all at that level. No actual reason, it was just different, and different=bad.

I think at that point I collected my headdesk smilies and left.

[Morgenstern]

I'm left handed. When I was in school they tried to make me use my right hand, but it just didn't work. I can half way use my right hand to write, but it's very unnatural and uncomfortable for me. I often got low marks for neatness in school because being left handed, my hand would drag across the pencil (and later pen) tracks I had on the paper, smearing them as I wrote from left to right.

[Taomist]

My mom was born a lefty. Also red-headed. Also covered with psoriasis. Also in an area and time <early 50's> where everyone <locally> paid to go to church, and you HAD to go to church. And church was just someone yelling at everyone at how evil they were and what they had to do to make up for it. She was considered to be the devil's child from day one. She is still a leftie; she just never learned to write properly until after she fled home and went into foster care.

Out of her four kids, one is bona-fide left handed. She taught us all to write at home, and let lefties be lefties.

My handwriting was TERRIBLE, I mean, just awful, no matter how long I practiced. And I had to practice every day during the summer; it was just that bad.

Later on, when I tried new things, they were always instinctively done by me left handedly, and I always wondered if maybe I would have done better writing left-handed. It certainly could not be worse than my right-handed writing.

Thank GODS for typewriters and computers, holy shit.

[C. Montgomery Burns]

My grandpa (born 1909) tried to make me use my right hand, but my parents didn't care, so I didn't have any trouble until I got into first grade, where the teacher yelled at me for using the wrong hand. I didn't even get it, either with my grandpa or the first grade teacher, what the problem was! I would fiddle with it for a little while while they were watching me, but switch back after they left me alone. I have tried on occasion to learn to write right handed just for the heck of it. When I did it in school, I was told not to and write with my left hand because they couldn't even read it. And that was when I took my time. To this day, if I write with my right hand it looks like I had a stroke while writing during plane turbulence.

[cmyk]

One pragmatic/practical consequence of being right-handed for any language that reads left-to-right is that writing is more natural and conducive since your left hand isn't covering what you write as you do so.

I see my left-handed friends crane their hand over the top of their writing, curling the pen under and their handwriting often looks heavily canted to the left.

Nothing more than an observation on my part (I'm right handed), and watching them write looks awkward, even though they're absolutely fluent in doing so.

Perhaps that's a reason some try and force their hand, so to speak?

[elfkin477]

Originally Posted by Morgenstern

I'm left handed. When I was in school they tried to make me use my right hand, but it just didn't work.

Me too. Apparently I got my first grade teacher dressed down by the principal when I told my parents about her charming insistance that we "write with our right!" and taking my pencil away in effort to get me to use the other hand. I'm 35 and it wasn't the dark ages back then (like when nuns tied mom's hand to her side; like me she's a redhead, and was accused of being devil's spawn by them like Taomist's mom. no wonder I didn't go to catholic school) so my parents were justifiably pissed.


congodwarf, I don't hook my hand either, nor does my dad. 40% of us don't, actually. How's her writing? Mine's pretty damn neat by anyone's standards.

AClockworkMelon, I'm with you. Right thumb goes on top, and I'm very left-handed.

[AClockworkMelon]

Originally Posted by cmyk

One pragmatic/practical consequence of being right-handed for any language that reads left-to-right is that writing is more natural and conducive since your left hand isn't covering what you write as you do so.

I see my left-handed friends crane their hand over the top of their writing, curling the pen under and their handwriting often looks heavily canted to the left.

Nothing more than an observation on my part (I'm right handed), and watching them write looks awkward, even though they're absolutely fluent in doing so.

Perhaps that's a reason some try and force their hand, so to speak?

Only slightly related: At a family gathering left-handedness came up and my mom, who's left-handed, said "God only made a few perfect people and the rest are all right-handed." My Uncle responded "Yeah, says the one who couldn't write without getting lead on the side of her hand in school" and many yuks were had at her left-handed expense.

[Sin Serially]

When I was learning to write (I'm mid-thirties now) I wrote naturally left handed. My father, who is Catholic, insisted that I write right handed. With the pen in the right hand I wrote just fine. Except mirrored.

So I now write left handed (and draw etc.) However I do almost everything else right handed.

I can do most things with either hand, just not as well with my "off" hand. Including writing.

It's rather handy (no pun intended) playing pool or ping pong with the ability to switch hands on the fly.

[bump]

I'm right handed and always have been, but my father was originally left handed, and was forced (back in the 1950s) to be right handed.

It always seemed kind of awful until he got Parkinson's, and his right arm and hand were too twitchy for him to really write.

So he just switched to his left like nothing had happened! Blessing in disguise, I suppose.

[nikonikosuru]

Heck, my mom forcefully extinguished my sister's developing ambidexterity and that was only about 15, 17 years ago. She forced her to use her right hand only, of course. Why, I have no clue. My mom's the dumb type who is into traditions, old wives tales, etc.

[Count Blucher]

I was forced to write righty. I got used to it & my handwriting sucks. Back in the day I once broke my right elbow & wrist at the same time & had to force myself to write lefty for a while. Took less than a week & my handwriting improved drastically.

But, ftr, while I'm still ambidextrous, I went back to writing with my right hand.

[MLS]

Left-handedness should be encouraged! Do these people realize the salaries that southpaw pitchers can command in the major leages??

[NoClueBoy]

I was apparently born ambidextrous. Seriously, just about even. In early elementary school, I would switch hands back and forth from sentence to sentence, sometimes even word to word. Though my teachers (in L.A., CA) understood lefty was not wrong, they didn't seem to have much training about ambis. So, they "forced" (more like guided) me to write right.

49

I still switch back and forth between hands for many tasks, but I only write left if I don't think about it first. Like when signing a credit machine, or quickly jotting down a phone number. If I write a note or make out a receipt, it's righty. Now that I type almost everything, it doesn't come up that often.

[septimus]

I was left-handed and was "converted" early in grade school (mid 1950's). I stuttered badly for several years (but had other emotional problems that began before I "converted)"). I am now quite uncoordinated in my left hand. Oddly, I do certain things the way left-handers do: folding my hands, crossing my arms and playing cards: I hold my cards in right hand and use left hand to select and play cards.

My daughter was born a lefty and, here in Thailand, it would have been common practice to "convert" her, but I said No.