Today - August 13th - is National Left Handers Day. We have a day!!! All of that grief we had as kids - desks shaped with an arm rest for right handers, spiral notebooks giving us notch marks in our arms, even having to buy special scissors, etc. - and we are now given a day. Aren't we special!?! They say that left handers are the only ones in their right mind! heehee
Wonderful to hear...never knew it! Thank you for informing me! Can we think of things we still have issues with as adult left-handers? My issue is with....the computer mouse....it's always on the right wherever you go so I've trained my right hand to use the mouse...even in my house!!! No fair!!!! I wonder if that short-circuits my brain somehow!! LOL
Too funny - and so true. I never thought about it, but I also use the mouse with my right hand! I drive an automatic because the shifter is also on the wrong side. (I could probably adjust to that as well, but I'd just as soon drive an automatic!)
I also use the mouse on the right side--always have! I can't even imagine switching that. My co-worker (who is right-handed) is very worried that her baby (a little over a year old now) is going to be left-handed. She thinks she won't be able to teach the baby skills like shoe-tying or how to write in a notebook. I tried to explain that all the rest of us left-handers have adapated pretty well, but she's still worrying about it.
I have 12 students, 5 of which are left handed. I realize that i'm teaching these kids how to form letters like a right handed person. Do left handed people form them different? I usually try to write left handed as I am teaching those students, and i can imagine some letters would be easier some other way. And should I tell them about how to position the paper or their hand. We teach right handed kids how to...sort of. I have pencil grips that are for left handed users. I was told that while most right handed people write pretty similiar to each other, almost all left handed people write differently. Is that true?
My husband, both of my boys and myself are all left handed. My daughter, being the only "righty" in the house feels "left" out!
I form some of my letters differently than righties do. I know I make my cursive I different ( I guess!!) I start at the bottom right, make a clockwise loop ending with the little backward swish from the left to right. But I was so heavily criticized in middle school because my writing was "illegible" so I practiced for hours upon hours trying to make my writing look more like a right handers. I still have the notebooks where I wrote the alphabet over and over and over!!! I am the world's worst cutter!! I don't sew because I can't cut things out!!! I did try to make curtains for my room. I bought enough material for 3 18inch valances including hem and rod pocket. I ended up with 3 12 inch valences because I cut one so crooked that I cut off 5 inches of material!!!!!
Good luck to her! My Mom said my father tried that for years, would take the spoon out of my left hand and move it to the right and I would just switch back. It's like trying to make someone change eye color! I also have problems cutting. When I was in Kinder myself I used to get "N's" in cutting because they didn't have any left-handed scissors and I didn't have the motor control for it in my right hand. To this day I still cut right-handed. The only thing I have trouble with today is my school has a softball team and every time I hit the ball it goes directly to 1st base. Not a very good strategy, but it does throw the pitcher off a little bit to have to throw to the other side.
I'm so glad that you mentioned that when you bat the ball it goes straight to first base. When I was in jr. and high school and had to play softball in P.E. class, I felt so humiliated because I always did this! No one ever told me that this happens with left-handers. Today is the first I'm hearing of this happening to someone else and I am in my mid-forties. Thank you!!!! I feel better but wish I had heard someone say this 30 years ago so I didn't feel so stupid at sports. I got to the point where I would just strike out so that I didn't have to hit the ball and have everyone make fun of me. And that's too bad because I am very powerful and could hit that ball extremely far but the kid didn't care because of the direction it went in.
That always happened to me too. BUT, were you batting left or right handed??? I would bat right, and the ball ALWAYS went to the 1st base or pitcher.
I learned to stand funky at the plate so that when I hit it went to left field. The outfield would always shift over to first because they thought "here comes a lefty!" Cutting was always torture for me. In school they had the metal scissors but they had a green rubber thing that covered the "handles". They were the exact same kind of scissors, just with the green stuff. When I was growing up and learning how to throw a baseball, the only glove we had in the house was for a right handed person. So I learned to throw right-handed and catch with my left. The only thing I can do with my right hand is throw and put mascara on.
I have no idea! LOL I'm sitting here picking up objects and getting in batting position to jog my memory but both left and right handed feel the same (akward!!!) so I don't know which way I batted!!! Great....now I'll be doing this in my sleep tonight!!! LOL
I wish I could drive with my elbow resting on the open window like the rest of the world but I drive with my left hand and my right hand stays on my lap. I don't look COOL!
I'm left handed,when I write, eat, cut, but I also do a lot of stuff right handed: drive a standard, played guitar right handed, batted right handed (throw with left though!), use mouse with right hand (I actually can't use the mouse with my left hand, I've tried!) Oh, and I've never been able to use those left handed scissors! my mom bought them when I was younger and my cutting was worse with them!!
I could have written that!!!! I do almost everything but eat and write with me right hand. My hubby took me target shooting at the police range. I shoot right handed, but I'm left eye dominant. Makes things difficult. To test which eye is dominant, Extend both hands forward of your body and place the hands together making a small triangle (approximately 1/2 to 3/4 inch per side) between your thumbs and the first knuckle. With both eyes open, look through the triangle and center something such as a doorknob or the bullseye of a target in the triangle. Close your left eye. If the object remains in view, you are right eye dominant. If your hands appear to move off the object and move to the left, then you are left eye dominant. To validate the first test, look through the triangle and center the object again with both eyes open. Close your right eye. If the object remains in view, you are left eye dominant. If your hands appear to move off the object and move to the right, then you are right eye dominant.
What if the directions are too difficult to follow!!! It's late for me...I'll try it tomorrow with coffee. LOL
My father is a forced lefty. He had an accident as a 2nd grader and he burnt his right shoulder and arm. They had it all bandaged and wrapped from almost a year so he had to teach himself to be a lefty. Because of this he has a hard time with what is left or right. He does most things like a lefty, but eat!! He also taught me a lot of things as a child and so I do somethings as a lefty....play pool, play baseball, eat with chopsticks......
Yay for lefties!!! I always felt like an outsider because I'm the only one in my family who is left-handed. Its so good to know I'm not alone!
leigh, I know how you felt! I'm the youngest of seven and NO ONE in my family was a lefty but me! But then I married a lefty and two of my three children are lefties............now I'm not alone anymore!
Yay for us southpaws! I remember seeing some research that proved lefthanded people were clumsier and suffered more accidents than right-handers. Well, DUH!!!....when everything you have to do is built with right-handed bias, I guess you WOULD have a tough time. I'd like to see how all those righties would survive in a world built completely backwards!!
Thanks for the post, you all make me feel so bad for the mother I have been! LOL! Just kidding, but my daughter is a lefty and I don't think that I have been really understanding throughout her 10 years of life. I knew she was a lefty when she was a toddler because she would pick up crayons and pencils with her left hand. I panicked and tried to force her to use her right hand. I thought the same thing you all have said: "how am I going to teach her all the things she need to know"? Well, she has adapted well although her handwriting is a bit messy at times, and it drives me crazy!! I go to the school and see the children's work displayed and of course, her work is not the neatest out of the bunch. But, other than that, what you say might be right terptoteacher, she is very creative and has astounding musical abilities!!! She's an A+++++++ dancer and has been dancing for 5 years. But I have to learn to understand how difficult life must be for her being left handed. She's the only one in the family. Thanks to you all, I will remember this post whenever I need her to sew something or drive while looking cool.
Maybe I'll buy her a gift to celebrate National Left Handers Day to make up for the aggrevation I've caused her. Little treats always help.
You can configurate the mouse and adapt it for the left hand. As a lefty I tried to changed it but I did not get used to. This right-handed society forced me to use it as a right-handed! If you are interested to try, go to: Start Control Panel Mouse V.
OR, for simplicity purposes, you could get a Mac....most of us in the Mac community still rely on the non-biased one-button mouse (though Apple has brought out a two-button version which can be configured for lefties, too).
I'm a righty when I use the mouse...I don't think I could get the hang of using it with my left hand.
I've tried the left-handed configuration for the mouse and it just felt too odd. It was very difficult to do. I had to be aware of every move!!! I think many of us lefties have gotten used to it right handed. If you have yours at home set for left....how do you get used top switching back to right when you use the computer away from home? I know some people can use both hands. Not me!! LOL
