By Gwen Rockwood, newspaper columnist and mama of 3
When our three college kids are home for a visit and we go out to eat, we follow a protocol. We usually ask for a big booth and slide into it in a particular order – with our two left-handed kids sitting together. Over the years, we’ve learned that when a lefty sits to the right of a righty, elbows collide. So, we’ve learned to arrange ourselves to give everyone room to move, no matter which hand holds the fork.
I love lefties, partly because I’m the mother of two of them and because the history of left-handedness is so interesting. Only about 10 percent of the human population is left-handed, which means there are more than 700 million left-handed people in a world of more than seven billion. Even dogs and cats have a “paw preference,” and one study shows that more than 30 percent of dogs and cats are lefties, too.
Scientists have been studying left-handedness for a long time now, but they still don’t completely understand it. They do know that genetics play a role. But I can tell you from experience that two right-handed parents like Tom and me can have one right-handed kid and two left-handed ones.
Fascinated by the mystery of it, I once asked my parents and Tom’s parents if any of their parents were left-handed. That’s when I learned that Tom’s dad (who I thought was right-handed) was born left-handed and had been “retrained” to use his right hand when he started school.
These days, forcing a kid to use his non-dominant hand seems like an absurd and even cruel thing to do. Forcing a change never even crossed my mind when I realized that two of my toddlers were reaching for Cheerios with the left hand versus the right. It just didn’t matter.
But for centuries, trying to force change toward conformity was regularly done because people made up crazy ideas about what it meant to be left-handed. They feared differences that didn’t matter, and that fear even crept into languages. The word “sinister” originates from Latin and translates to the word “left.” In the Middle Ages, sometimes left-handed people were actually burned at the stake because they were assumed to be the offspring of witches or devils.
Throughout history, people continued to be so unnerved by a simple difference in hand dominance that teachers were told to “correct” left-handed kids into right-handed ones. In some Asian cultures, the right hand is called “the good hand,” and the left is called the “bad” one. Can you imagine what it must have felt like to be a little kid who adults called “wrong” or treated as unacceptable for simply moving in ways that felt natural since birth?
Over and over, scientific studies, common sense, and real-life experience have shown that being left-handed and being right-handed are both natural. Different but natural. Left-handed people aren’t trying to hurt anyone or destroy society by grabbing a cup of coffee with the left instead of the right.
Thankfully, in the 1960s and 70s, Americans finally put an end to the foolishness of trying to force kids to be right-handed. It’s a shame it took that long, but it finally happened. We learned that different doesn’t equal destructive or demonic. We created left-handed scissors and expanded our minds to accept that right-handed and left-handed people are all just people. Our world is packed with differences and diversity – in plants, animals, people, abilities, landscapes, colors, climates, languages, accents, and cultures – yet we all survive on one planet.
Sometimes I wonder if this is one of those lessons human beings will have to keep learning in all areas of life – that different doesn’t mean wrong. That difference can deliver its own blessings and strengths. Two hundred years from now, what biases and conflicts will seem ludicrous to future generations?
I hope they’ll look back at the political fights of our current age and wonder why people wasted so much energy and spewed so much hate over a simple difference between left and right.
Gwen Rockwood is a syndicated freelance columnist. Email her at gwenrockwood5@gmail.com. Her book is available on Amazon.
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