Yesterday, MamboMissy, age 5, decided to come out for the first time… as a left hander! Joy unbounded accompanied this announcement, for for many long, cruel years I have been the sole possessor of the “cackyhanded gene” in the Mambofamily line. It’s so nice to see another mollydooka carrying on the fanmily tradition.
So I thought, why not have a thread celebrating all the joys of left-handedness, all the woes of the gauche life and the achievments of all those great lefites who have gone before us. Dopers, let us be livin’ la vida lefty… come share your stories of your left hand.
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Congrats for having a kid who is in her right mind!
My big left-hander advantage: When I was teaching my righty kid to tie his shoes, all I had to do was stand in front of him. He duplicated the way he saw me do it and – voila! – he mastered it in nuthin’ flat.
No, wait – even huger advantage! Fencing left-handed! Threw all my righty opponents totally off, and on the rare times I faced another lefty, we were equally thrown off.
Technically I’m mainly a lefty when writing, and when using a fork, though there may be other aspects of the way I do things that are distinctly leftist. (Politics included) I bat to the right, though, and I mouse right-handedly, among some other things, but I expect this is learned behavior resulting from “the way it’s always been done.”
It is said that lefties are more creative in nature, which I can certainly agree with since my hobbies have always had a wide creative streak. (Music, art, creative writing, cooking) On the other hand (heh), I’m also extremely analytical, logical, and love things technical in nature, too, so maybe that’s not such an accurate truism.
My mom’s a lefty, I’m a lefty, and my youngest son is a lefty. It’s weird that you are just now seeing it when she’s 5, though- I could tell my son was left-handed as a baby.
About a year ago or so, I read an article in the english Pravda that claimed that more lefties are being born these days, because people are continuously evolving to be more perfect, and lefties are more perfect than righties. We hear better, too.
I don’t know if all that’s true, but I like being left-handed- it helps me to stand out from the crowd.
It may not be so much that more lefties are being born, but that they are allowed to remain lefties. My dad is a natural lefty, but when he when to school he was forced to learn to write with his right hand. To this day, he does everything but write with his left.
Another lefty checking in. I use scissors in my right hand though, not sure where I picked that up. According to my dad I used both hands equally when I was young before my left took over.
FWIW, a lefty former boyfriend told me that in elementary school his teachers tried to “convert” him, wouldn’t let him write with his left hand. I didn’t realize this was such an issue so fairly recently - he is 23 now.
Unless the scissors are specifically made for left-handed people, don’t you have to use them with your right hand? All the scissors I use won’t work in the left hand.
I didn’t think so, necessarily, but maybe so. In any case what I meant was I would rather use regular scissors in my right hand despite being a lefty, even left-handed scissors always feel awkward to me.
They will, you just have to stop trying so hard. “Regular” scissors have the blades oriented so that the slight squeeze I unintentionally put on them while cutting with the right hand squeezes the blades together. Using the left hand, you “squeeze” them apart, so they don’t cut as well. Loosening your grip lets the blades go back together and they’re fine. Problem is most people get aggravated and grab harder, trying to make it work. Like Chinese fingercuffs, more effort makes the problem worse.
My husband’s a lefty, and while he cuts like a spazz, it’s because he has no fine motor control whatsoever. He’s no better with lefty scissors, so I stopped buying them. He can mangle things just as well with my cheap “righty” scissors in his left hand - his problem is cutting straight, not getting the scissors to cut.
Really, the only time his left-handedness ever comes up is when we’re dining at a tight table. We’ve gotten better at remembering he needs a left hand end free for his elbow, but 1 time in 5 we forget and knock elbows until I just switch and eat with my left hand.
I don’t know what the common way to sort cards is, but I’ve noticed I do it the opposite of all my friends.
(Lowest to highest, then face cards; left to right)
