Comments on: Choosing the Left

By: kmillecam

kmillecam — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:14:06 +0000

Like Jessawhy 3 years ago, I too clicked on the sidebar to read this and wanted to say “hi” to my fellow lefites. I am married to a righty, but my oldest son is definitely left-handed and is in kindergarten probably discovering the woes of scissors.

By: Darwin

Darwin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:01:31 +0000

In response to taking the sacrament with your right hand (check out the link):

“I Have a Question,” Ensign, Mar 1983, 67–69
Questions of general gospel interest answered for guidance, not as official statements of Church policy.

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=6834744047e7c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

By: Jo

Jo — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:38:50 +0000

Here is a way to spot some right handed students or adults who were switched from being left handed in school. They will sit and write with their left hand tucked under their left hip or leg. It is odd to see this pose, when the person is writing, and asked about it, the person had been switched and this was the strategy used to not use the left hand, when writing.
I don’t work in a factory, unless you can call public education a factory. I was educated in a public school in the Northwestern US. It was the mid 60′s and yes, they used those metal edged, wooden rulers to swat students writing with their left hand. They do not currently practice that technique in public schools to address left handed behavior.

By: Kiskilili

Kiskilili — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:22:32 +0000

Very interesting stuff! That’s outrageous that your second-grade teacher tried to make you a right-hander so you’d be fit for a factory!! Unreal. As to taking the sacrament with your right hand–I think that’s probably a relatively unofficial policy?

By: Jo

Jo — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:56:11 +0000

Just an interesting note for all of the left handed people out there. I did a review of the literature, in my post graduate work, which gave some interesting facts on left handed people. In sonogram studies, when the hand by the face is the left hand, 90% of the time, that is the dominant hand. Just because you are left handed, does not mean that your brain dominant side is the right side, as most people are brain dominant on the left side. In animal studies, many identical twins are started, but somewhere along the line, one of the twins is lost, usually within the first few weeks. Identical twins come in various forms, one of which is called a “mirror identical twin”. That means that the twins are formed as if looking in a mirror. One twin will be right handed and the other will be left handed.
The animal study theory is that most left handed people, like most left handed animals, are the result of being a mirror twin. If twins run in your family, you are more likely to be left handed. Left handed people often have more left handed people in their family tree.
It is recommended not to switch a left handed child to being right handed. In second grade, I had a teacher, who decided I shouldn’t be left handed and would strike the back of my left hand when she saw me holding a pencil or crayon with it. On Monday’s, I would have to look for the ruler cuts on the back of the hand that I wasn’t supposed to use. Her explanation was that I couldn’t work in a factory, if I was left handed.
I was delighted when I could word process and won an award in high school for being the fastest when typing. As a school pyschologist, I have had to counsel families on allowing left handed children to remain left handed. Some families have strong resistance to allowing children to be left handed. Most teachers are educated enough to allow children to use their dominant hand when writing. Working against that just raises the child’s anxiety, which blocks learning. My sister advised me once in church, to not take the sacrement with my left hand. Is this a “rule” or just some myth left over from the dark ages?

By: Lynnette

Lynnette — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:08:06 +0000

Hey Jessawhy! I’m glad you resurrected this thread to chime in–always nice to hear from more lefties. That’s really funny that you and your husband are both left-handed, but none of your children are!

I was recently in this cool left-handed shop where they had these funky-looking pens that angled things so that when you wrote left-handed, you were kind of pulling the pen instead of pushing it. They were pretty neat. I also picked up a set of playing cards with markings on all four corners, so that when you fan them out in your (right) hand you can actually see what they are–something I’ve been wanting for a long time. My sister-in-law always laughs to see me hold face cards, because I do it in this weird vertical way so that I can see them.

By: jessawhy

jessawhy — Sat, 10 May 2008 03:54:37 +0000

At the risk of offending the ZD admin, and commenting on a thread that is 2 years old, I just want to say “Yeah for lefties!”
I clicked on the link on the sidebar (is that new?) because me and my husband are both left handed.
But, our three sons* are all right handed. What are the chances?
*Baby Fin is only 6 mo, but he sucks his right thumb, so we think that’s a good indicator.
I do think lefties have learned to adapt to varying degrees. I do more with my right hand than my DH (like use scissors, a mouse, doorknobs, etc) but in a right handed society, some adaptation is necessary for those of us who are “deliciously wicked” lefties.

By: jimbob

jimbob — Mon, 08 May 2006 23:37:00 +0000

Russel M. Nelson had something in the Ensign perhaps 25 years ago where he speculated that the right hand was the covenant making hand. It was when he was a 70. If I remember right, he prefaced it with the disclaimer that he’d never seen revealed doctrine on it.

I also wonder, if the whole wiping with one hand and taking with the other is true, why most of us don’t take with our left hand. Without being too descriptive, I simply can’t go to my left in that area; I’ll bet most right-handers can’t.

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 05:14:00 +0000

Although I’m right-handed, I can eat left-handed, I prefer to use a mouse with my left hand, and in college sometimes I would take notes with my right hand while doing the crossword puzzle with my left.

And let me tell you, being “more ambidextrous than the average right-handed person” has really done wonders for my resume.

By: Lynnette

Lynnette — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 03:00:00 +0000

Good to hear from some other lefties out there! I have to say, I’m grateful that no one in my life has ever attempted to make me switch. And Mark, I agree that it’s fun to have something about which to feel “deliciously wicked.”

gst, it actually took me a long time to realize why spiral notebooks caused me so much trouble! Now I usually just write on the “back” side of the page. I have to confess, however, that unlike Eve, I’ve gone over to the dark side and I’m actually more comfortable using a right-handed mouse than a left-handed one.