On being left handed

I'm left handed. I knit right handed because I was taught that way - anything that requires both hands you tend to do it the way you were taught. I use my knife and fork the right way - as in how right handed people do!

I often have trouble convincing people that corkscrews are a problem - I have to explain about screwdrivers and tin openers before it seems to dawn on them. (Or show them).

The only problem I had when I was at school was smudging my writing as we used fountain pens, and in the earlier days of ball point pens they tended to be a bit leaky and smudgy.

You get used to some things being a bit awkward and frustrating - scissors, flexes on the wrong side of appliances and equipment etc.

I'm a leftie too!

The Everly Brothers, Don and Phil, played guitar right-handed but were both actually lefties. They played guitar right-handed primarily because their father, Ike, taught them that way to avoid the social stigma and practical difficulties associated with being left-handed during the 1940s and 50s.

One of the many reasons I hated school from 5 to 16 was that we, a few leftie pupils, were regularly shouted at and treated like morons by ''teachers'' who thought only righties had any intelligence. I left as soon as I turned 16 in April of 1981, instead of waiting until September! Didn't bother collecting my stuff from the locker or saying anything to anyone; I just didn't go back!

In Worcester, some years ago, I found a shop that claimed to be for us lefties, with leftie scissors, books, etc. I was excited, went trotting in, and the creepy bloke only had about 2 leftie items, everything else was for righties! I asked why he claims it's all for lefties, and he just smirked, so I walked out and never had anything more to do with him or his equally stupid shop!

Being a leftie and ''bad'' etc. is associated with religion, witchcraft and so on, by the self-righteous righties!

There is also the left handed hook writing. Knew a boy at school who would scrawl a left handed hook when writing. I can still hear his fountain pen now scratching the paper.

My mother, brother me and some nieces are left handed. We arrange ourselves carefully at the table to avoid injury during soup and pudding courses. . We all use knives and forks normally. Both at school and during my nurse training I was made to feel my left handedness was me being difficult as all equipment was for right handed normals. Apparently when I cut toenails it looks frightening

I’ll add our daughter and grandson to that impressive list. Both incredibly intelligent.
My husband pointed out when we met that I was probably naturally left handed too, as I wear my wristwatch on my right wrist.

Both my parents were left-handed as am I. I write with my right hand. I am fairly ambidextrous but scissors and can openers fox me.

I remember in my 20s playing darts and I ended up with an audience as I was using both hands.

I am sitting here with a desk top computer and the mouse comfortably on my left side.

My DS2 is left handed as was my father.My son is also dyslexic but he is now 53 and this was not recognised at his primary school then, he was called a slow to learn reader and was put into a remedial reading class.Some of his class mates called him a ''spacker'' which is a local word for retarded, resulting in him playing truant from school.He did mirror writing which the teachers told me was common in left handed children.
He was and still is very good at art and model making.He has a photographic memory and only needs to visit a place once to get familiar with it.He has always somehow managed with using right handed things in his own way, it is fascinating watching him manoeuvre scissors for example.
He will never be an avid reader, and his handwriting is terrible because of his dyslexia.
I realised he was going to be left handed from a very early age, he always grabbed objects in his left hand as a baby, and when learning to feed himself, if I put the spoon into his right hand he would transfer it to his left one,

I am left handed and always been clumsy and no one could teach me to knit🙈 Scissors has always been a problem!! My sister is left handed too, my mum was and one grandchild is! I cannot do anything with my right hand!!

DD2 is left-handed. When, in primary school they began to use ink pens - the head-teacher still favoured those dippy ones even in the eighties - DD obviously smudged quite a bit as our script (way of writing) is right-handed.

When the teacher complained to me about this I pointed out that I had just written a post-graduate dissertation in pencil and nobody minded so why couldn't an eight-year-old left-handed child carry on using a pencil for a bit longer.

They never complained again.

I wrote in pencil (still do rather a lot) because it's less strain and less painful for my right-sided costochondritis. I do a lot of jobs and everyday activities left-handed for the same reason.

I concur, Margiknot, about the difficulty of reading my right-handed efforts after being punished for using my left hand. The only guy who could reliably read it was Chinese and even he once misread my "After the rain the harvest followed" and typed "After the rain the champagne flowed".

My late twin was left handed when young ( I’m right handed) . Writing left handed was discouraged at school, so she became ambidextrous and could write with either hand. Her hand writing was difficult to read either way, so I wonder if being forced to use her non dominant hand was the reason.

My Father in law was left handed but had his hand tied behind his back. My husband is left handed but because so much wasn't geared up for left handers he is pretty much ambidextrous. As a right hander, I am pretty useless using my left hand.

I well remember left-handers in my primary school class being made to use their right hand. this was in the 1960s. If they didn't comply they got a ruler over their knuckles.

My GD is left-handed. No problems really apart from when she decided to use a fountain pen for some obscure reason. Her school work was a horrible smudgy mess DH and I are right-handed, as are our two daughters. GD has recently taken up badminton and is very popular with her coaches as apparently opponents are often confused by left-handers and find them more difficult to play against! Don't know if that's true...

Both DDs are dyslexic. One’s left handed, one right, although the left hander uses her knife in her non dominant hand. They can both mirror write and memorize long passages from films.

There were ten of us in my class of 30 who were left handed. The sewing teacher put us all on one table as she was right handed and had to adjust her brain to left handed sewing. Also, I have difficulty using a can opener.

jimi hendrix flipped he guitars upside stung them then
and prince william,da vinci,paul mccartney,obama,angalina jolie ,keanu and many more

I am left-handed but thankfully never subject to torture over it.
Both my children are left handed too- I never made a thing of it and neither have they.

My grandchildren are right handed, I think. I don't even know!

I am slightly ambidextrous as well and can force myself to write with my right hand if I have to. Never had any gadgets or aids to help me with fiddly things, although I am very unco-ordinated and sometimes still get right and left mixed up. I was a nightmare for my driving instructer!!

I was left handed but when I went to Primary school in very early’60’s it wasn’t appreciated.

My mum had taught me to write my name by myself but the teacher said I was a Widdershin (sp ?) child and tied my left arm to the back of the chair. I remember that word so clearly.

I was forced to write with my right hand and I became extremely clumsy.
Barbaric!

I am left handed.
Scissors have always been difficult, as there was no such thing as left - handed scissors when I was a child. Therefore I continue to use normal scissors which hurt my thumb.
Shoe laces I tie differently, magazines I read from the back forward, and I always turn things the wrong way to open.
I always start upstairs with my left foot, so have to think on escalators etc. I was always seated at the end of a row of desks
so that my elbow didn’t knock my neighbour when writing.
I could go on lots of disadvantages, but I rather like being left- handed.

I was mostly left alone in school to get on with it with the exception of the vicar’s wife who came in to teach us basic embroidery stitches. She didn’t like that I was doing it backwards as she saw it and tried to make me do the same way as everyone else. I still used my left hand and it was so awkward that I never got further than the first row. No sampler to take home for me. My Mum and Gran tried to teach me to knit, but I didn’t learn until my husband figured out how to knit backwards and showed me.

Both my daughters are ‘lefties’. My older son used both hands for drawing and writing when small but eventually favoured his right hand. Second son does terrible handwriting with his R-hand and plays sport such as cricket with his L-hand.

One dd is very left handed, she uses it for everything and mirror-writes and all the rest. Second dd can do more things with her right hand than dd1 but writes with her left hand and as a medic conducts procedures such as taking blood, doing stitches with her left hand, as well.

Dd1’s family are 75% left-handed as both her children are lefties. Their dad is bemused at having to live in a left-handed world! 😂😂

Cuddy wifter ...my sister is left handed,my grandson too

Embroider with my left .

I left handed but my father said the world is made for right handed people so I learned to write with my right hand and my writing is considered better with that hand than my left although I used to find mirror writing easy. I crochet with my right hand but embroider with my right. I’m probably very muddled. One daughter and her two children are left handed .the other daughter and two children are right handed .

DH and their DHs are all right handed

I too was treated as a deviant at primary school. When learning to write I would pick up the pencil in either hand and start to form letters. If I chose the right hand it was fine. If I chose the left hand I was rapped over the knuckles with a ruler. I recall sitting in fear, wondering which hand was the one that got me in trouble and pain, and was often unable to chose. They were bad days, back then.

I now write right-handed but swing any two-handed object e.g. cricket bat, golf club left handed. I usually drink left-handed too. When I learned to play tennis I discovered that I could use either hand for the raquet.

I have two children, one is left-handed, one right-handed. And I have a PhD.