Comments on: “None of us could speak English”

by: Itxaso

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 10:53:43 +0000

I am also a lefty and nobody ever tried to force to change myself. On the contrary, I always felt happy or proud of being a lefty because it made me feel special, different (in a good sense) specially with my class mates. They couldn’t believe that I was able to do everything with my left hand and they used to treat me like the “skilled” one. When I used to play football with my friends (I was never very good at it, only average) I have to admit that I was quite a good goal scorer because the goal keeper didn’t expect me to kick the ball with my left leg. The little problems came when I started with my cello lessons. The cello (as most of the things in the world) are designed only for right-handed people and I had to learn how to pick the bow with my right hand. Actually, I was very clumsy and it took more than what is estimated to learn how to use properly a bow. That frustrated me a little bit as I couldn’t understand why did I have to do it that way but when I started to learn how to give musical sense with my left hand everything changed. My hand was very skillful when playing a melody. I am proud of being left-handed and I strongly believe that we should be treated equally. Teachers, parents, anyone who tries to change a left-handed into a right-handed is like trying to change that little girl into a boy, or vice-versa. Does it sound more ridiculous like that?

by: Ted

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:29:25 +0000

As a fellow lefty I am proud that every President since Richard Nixon has been a lefty except for the two duds in that group- Jimmy Carter and George W Bush. And both Obama and McCain are lefties.

by: Gina Land

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:29:41 +0000

I am happy to say I am a lefty. I did have a teacher slap my hand in school, but happily I remained a lefty. I am a music fanatic, I teach piano an most of the music teachers (guitar/piano etc) I know are lefties.
I have been doing my own research over the years, and I have found that lefties appear more emotional, hense in life experiences, they have a higher E.Q. awareness. Also, I work with foster children (I babysit them as a relief to their foster parents and them) I found the left handed children more emotionally devistated by the separation and loss. I theorize that over the years, this aparent emotional highteness leads eventually to higher EQ.
I think lefties (such as beethovan, mozart, ghandi) are more apt to buck the trends, go against the norm, possitive or negative.
Its interesting that for a living I teach piano, am an aromatherapist (smells) all related to areas of the right brain.
Written essays (language connections) have always been a breeze for me. I can write an 8 page essay in a few hours……..(did that last night)…how about you fellow lefties….what’s your occupation?

by: Jaimee Evans

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:39:42 +0000

I really admire left-handed people. I’m right handed but something about lefties fascinate me and I kind of want to be a lefty. Thats why I’ve been training myself to use my left hand as well as my right. Once I accomplish this I plan to use my left hand permanently. (i typed this whole thing with my left hand.)

by: maricon babol

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:26:47 +0000

I am so glad that I found a site that suited to my research paper about left handers

by: Colleen PIllar

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 04:31:16 +0000

Fellow Lefties, I salute you!
I am currently a psychology undergraduate student doing a little research for a paper I have to write for my Intergroup Relations class. Ultimately, the task at hand is for me to describe a social identity that I belong to, identify with, and value. Well, my choice of social identity is as a left-handed person!
I am not one of the numerous who experienced forced right-handedness, but I have always taken notice of the right-handed world we live in. I guess maybe this is why I really do value my left-handed social identity; although lacking any specific, logic-based reasoning as to why, us lefties have had to learn to over come some sort of physical obstacle, be it big or small, simply to navigate our day-to-day lives. Ultimately, I think we are the bigger, better people for it!
Debra Steele, if you are still active in this area of research, although I assume you have completed your dissertation work by now, I would love to be a participant, or even to hear how your study went.

by: Laura

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:27:15 +0000

I, too, was a corrected to right-handedness left-handed child, but never really knew how left-handed I was until the computer age! When I had to use a mouse for the first time, I found my hand-eye coordination so lacking that I could not smoothly use a mouse under any circumstances. I was provided with a track-ball and even that did not alleviate the situation. After changing my mouse orientation for a lefthander, I had no further problems. I AM A BORN LEFT-HANDER and to this day I am baffled at the ignorance showed me by (i) my parents, who believed that my left-handedness was a birth defect; (ii) the educated teachers, both Ursuline and Notre Dame nuns and lay teachers who had the audacity to declare my penmanship unworthy when written left-handed, for which I was subsequently punished; and (iii) the nun who (1) broke a finger on my RIGHT hand for “slovenly” penmanship and then (2) at a later time proceeded to break a finger on my LEFT hand after I had written my paper with my left hand. Please understand that my parents still to this day do not know about the fingers being broken, because it is easy to tape two fingers together to let the broken one heal and at the tender age of 9 I was smart enough to do this and neither of my parents noticed anything out of the ordinary. Today, they call this child abuse and the nun would be swiftly removed from the clasroom and prosecuted. What a change from the 1960’s!

by: Jaumet -Catalonia-

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:45:29 +0000

I’m left handed in almost all things. I was lucky, being a child only an old teacher told me to write with the right hand. I was so young, but I didn’t understand why I had to do it with the right, and I asked to her: why? she didn’t had a satisfactory answer, only told: because it’s better. But why? she insisted in the same, so I cheated, wrote (or tried to) a few seconds with my right, to make her shut up and go away, and then I returned to my left. Luckyly she wasn’t one of these cruel teachers who hit children to convert them in something unnatural. She was cheated and left me alone. The rest of teachers luckyly were smart people and knew there wasn’t anything wrong with that. I had no problems with in in all mi life -I’m 32 now-, and I had a few advantages in basketball and kickboxing combats for being left handed.
The only problem I had found in my life was sometimes I had my left hand dirty after writing, but I learned to do it without having to wash my left hand of ink ; )
The other -little- problem was only a few commentaries of people who quicly, after see me writing say: ‘you are left handed!’ (zurdo in spanish, esquerrà in Catalan) as if was something strange. It amuses me, because I never look on which hand is using people to write to, probably I see some left handed people in my life but I don’t take notice ’cause I’m not concerned with this.
I have heard too some people who truly believe that left handers are smarter, more intelligent, better at sports, than left handed, and some other -usually old women from ‘redneck zones’- who believe left handed bring bad luck, and avoid left handers or make the catholic cross sign when they are in front a leftie, as is they were in front of a vampire! haha : D
As we say in Spain, there are some people who exist so there was anything in the world ; )

by: helen

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:57:36 +0000

i’m lefthanded (yay) and i’m very happy with it. i was never forced to change which hand i used or bullied for being a leftie. throughout my life, though, my handwriting has been verging on the scruffy. in school the teachers always complained about how my handwriting was so messy, but none of them showed me how to improve it. my writing has improved with age, but mainly because i have learnt through trail and error what sort of pen is best for me.

by: wendy green

Wed, 23 May 2007 03:23:16 +0000

I am left handed and people always gasp and say I didnt know you were Left-Handed! like I dont know this.
My grandmother had a fit and said that my other needed to make me be right handed or id be picked on in school. Of all the things that Ive ever been picked on for being left handed isnt one of them.
Grandma would take things( blocks, my bottle) fom my left hand and put them in my right hand and id huff and put it back in my right hand,
I tried writing with my right hand but it felt awkward and weird and I was very frusrated until my teacher said oh just try the other hand, that felt normal and I could write. I dont curl my hand around, im the mirror image of a right hander.
People make a big deal of explaining things to me,like im slow or something because Im left hande, Ill say just explain it and ill figure it out.
Im a chef so I use an ambi blade and chef sissors, I fold pastry bags the same way a right hander would.