I’m going on 30 and I’m left handed… but I’ve been curious if my parents made me be left handed since my brother, my dad and my mom are all right handed. Then I started wondering, can I learn to write with my right hand (as well as throw) to the same level of my left hand… when I try to throw with my right hand, it looks like I’m imitating how girls throw. How long will it take?
Well, I only have anecdotal evidence from my sister who sliced some tendons in her right hand when she was 7. She was forced to learn to write left-handed while her right hand healed. She picked it up pretty quickly (a couple of weeks), but kids at that age pick up everything pretty quickly.
I’m a lefty, but I learned to write in the mid-fiftys. When I started school writing was taught using the Palmer Penman method. My teacher forced me to write using my right hand, in fact she made me sit on my left hand while I was writing. My hand writing sux, and to this day, although I do write right-handed I pick the pencil up with my left hand and put it in my right hand.
I took typing as soon as it was an option for me in jr. high and I wish I could have taken it earlier. Being able to type, this was long before the days of word processers, has been an advantage to me many times in my life. I do tend to wear out keyboards as I was taught on an mechanical Underwood typewriter with no letters on the keys. Ms. Clarke taught us to :
Sit up straight.
Hold the wrists up.
Address the keys ‘firmly’. (Hit 'em hard!)
The younger you are, the easier it is to do.
Additionally, some people are more ambidexterous than others. I can draw/paint etc. equally well with either hand - it’s easier to work on each side of a drawing/painting with the appropriate hand becasue then you don’t smear your work. I don’t remember teaching myself how to do this, but I assume I did becasue I write right handed.
I think if you injured your left hand and were forced to use your right, you would pick it up, but if you’re naturally a lefty, and your left hand is in functioning order, using your right will be tricky.
Just ask any left-handed baby boomers (or older) how comfortable they are writing with their right hands. My father was forced to “turn around” (he said his teacher literally tied his left hand down) and not only was his handwriting horrible, he developed a stutter. That’s why my mother fought the teachers to let me write left-handed. I had classmates with similar stories and problems.
Just curious, why on earth would you think your family picked out a right-handed child in a family of right-handers and forced that child to become left-handed? With everything from scissors to spiral notebooks to ink-stained hands to contend with, I wouldn’t particularly wish it on my kids (one of whom is left-handed, two of whom aren’t.)
kunilou, I comiserate with your father. I too was a victim of this type of teaching. My poor handwriting has been a burden to me my whole life. I got poorer grades than I deserved in all my english classes because of my poor hand-writing. I hated english class and any class that involved a great deal of writing until I learned to type and I’m sure it had a bad effect on my grades throughout my school years.
alice_in_wonderland, has, I think, pretty well nailed it.
Some people are more purely disposed to use one hand than the other. Regardless of this, one can improve one’s facility with the less-favored hand, at least to some degree, if necessity requires it.
When my mother was in grade school in the 1920s she was taught to write with her right hand and her left hand was actually tied down so she could not use it. In later life she could write about equally well with either hand, and she could “mirror write” in script with either hand too. Her penmanship was poor only when she was writing backwards with her right hand. :eek:
Some years ago I used to have a tennis lesson each week with a professional coach. One week he rang to cancel the lesson because he’d wrecked his shoulder. Two weeks later he rang to say he was back coaching. When I went for my lesson I was surprised to find him playing left handed. I said “How long have you been able to play left handed?” He replied “Since last week.” When I expressed surprise that he learned so quickly he just said, “It was either learn to do it or stop eating.” He was still considerably better than me left handed.
I also recall reading years ago about a college baseball pitcher who was also on the college tennis team. When a MLB team signed him they told him to give up tennis due to the risk of tennis elbow. He changed to playing with his other hand and stayed on the team.
I have always been a fan of ludicrous skills and one of my favourites (although I can’t find who it was) was the famous person who could take dictation and write it down in English with one hand and French with other simultaneously.
My right-handed aunt suffered a stroke in her 80’s, which left her with restricted use of her right hand & arm.
She decided that she was going to learn to write with her left hand, and that she was going to write her Xmas cards herself. So she spent months working on this, and did it!
So I guess you can, if you are motivated enough. (But I don’t see any advantage in changing this, if you don’t have to.)
I don’t know if my parents forced me to be left handed… i’ve never asked, but i bat left handed, throw, write, and everything… my brother is younger and completely the opposite… everything right handed… i’m more curious as to whether i can even get this right hand working…