Did you know that only 10% of the world’s population is left handed? I googled that stat for this blog post, and I came across this article, which I found to be utterly fascinating! The study in it talks about the need for cooperation vs. competition, and how if we lived in a society that was 100% cooperative, we’d all be the same-handed. (Hahaha, clearly that isn’t the case with our world right now.)
However, in many sports where competition favors the unusual, the number of left handed people is disproportionately higher. More than 50% of the top baseball players are left handed, for example. How cool is that?
So, why do I care about all of this? Well, handedness is partially genetic and partially environmental. My grandpa was a leftie through and through, my sister and father-in-law write & eat left handed (though they do many other things right handed), my brother-in-law is a leftie, and I’m a leftie. I have ALWAYS hoped that one of my kids would follow in my foot(hand?)steps, and so far I’m feel pretty confident that Harv is going to be a little leftie just like his Mama! I’m not gonna lie – I totally always put the silverware in his left hand when he was a baby, so I was definitely trying to edge him to my side since the beginning. LOL.
I’d love to know how many of YOU are lefties (or have kids that are lefties)!
PS, I have such strong memories of doing the games on the back of cereal boxes as a child myself, and it’s so fun to see my kids start to do the same!
PPS, Charlie was clearly tired of Harvey spilling his cereal milk this morning. 🙂
PPPS, Blue blankie little is never out of Harvey’s reach, EVER.
My daughter is a lefty although my husband and I are not. My mother is not either, but out of her family of 10, 4 of them were lefties. Oddly, those 4 lefties are also the only other people besides my daughter allergic to Penicillin. Weird, right?
Way weird!
I am a leftie but I do a lot of things right handed. I guess I learned to adopt to my surroundings. My maternal papa and paternal grandmother are/were left handed. I, like you, really want a left handed child; but, unfortunately, it looks like both Ava and Paxton are going to be right handed. Another fun fact about left handed people is that 5 of the last 7 POTUS have been left hand.
And Trump definitely is not one of them. 😉
Yes, I cut right handed, just because the left handed scissors were so awful in 2nd grade that I taught myself how to switch. LOL
No genetics at play here, obviously, but R and I are righties and E is a lefty!
My husband and I are both right handed and my oldest daughter is left handed. The only person in my family that I know that is even slightly left handed is my mom. She writes with her right hand, but pitched and batted left handed as a child. She was forced to write with her right hand in school so I think she is probably truly a lefty. I can’t do anything with my left hand. It was a struggle to help my daughter with writing, learning a cartwheel, etc.
When I was a kid, I thought girls were right-handed and boys were left-handed, because that rule was observed in my entire family. When I found out one of my friend’s mom was left-handed, I was astonished.
So I’m a righty, a child of a lefty and a righty. My husband is a lefty, the child of two lefties. I was SURE my daughter would be a lefty. Nope!
My brother is a lefty, my dad plays golf and swings a bat left handed but does everything else righty. husband and I both righties. no one i know of in my husband’s immediate family is a lefty. of our 3 kids, only our middle child is a lefty. he’s also our most free-spirited, most artistic, least coordinated when it comes to sports, and he has severe ADHD (emphasis on the H).
I just, like seconds ago, opened an “assessment” from Poppy’s “school.” Yes, those words should all be in quotes. She’s in a class with older kids, whose assessments are probably more appropriate, but for my little 2-year-old (and especially a 2-year-old who is the youngest/most neglected child of three), it was just cute to read. ANNNNNYYWAY, it says right on the bottom at the end that she is dominantly leftie, prefers switching back and forth, and is strong on the left and weak on the right. She switches allllllll the time. Everyone in our family wants her to be left-handed, but I don’t know how to teach writing, cutting, etc. leftie. So, I’ve been hoping for a last minute switch 🙂
McMister bats both and has definitely encouraged Gracie to learn batting both ways, both bc she wants to be like him and bc he’s verbally encouraged her to do so. My brother is a lefty and is great at sports!
Also, looooove all the P.S.s 🙂
Ha, well you’re way ahead of me. I have never taught Stella how to write a single letter, so it never occurred to me to wonder how to teach it. I mean, the letters are written the same way with either hand, right? 😉
My brother got the equivalent of an F in kindergarten for holding the pencil wrong Hahahaha! I remember my mom being upset that she couldn’t teach him how more easily, and it obviously traumatized me 🙂
My husband is a leftie (oddly, I have dated and/or been attracted to a disproportionate number of left-handed men over the years). He had hoped that one or both of our twin sons would be lefties as well since, as you say, it’s genetic.
However, at almost-5, they both seem to be right-handed: write with their right hands, throw a ball with their right hands, etc. Interestingly, one of our sons showed a preference for his left hand earlier in life but that has switched since about age 3.5 or 4.
I’ve been hoping one of my kids would turn out a leftie – my dear grandpa was it would’ve made him so happy! So far Sofia is definitely a rightie and Andy I’m not sure about… when does that become totally clear? When he eats he is more dexterous with his right but he favors his left. Weirdo.
I really want one of my kids to be a leftie like me! thought G would be a leftie, but I was wrong. L still switches between hands, so I feel like there might be hope?
I think the % of the population that is categorized as left handed will increase, since we’re no longer trying to make people right handed anymore! My daughter and father are lefties, and my husband wonders if he is naturally a lefty, but was conditioned in school to be a righty. Fun post 🙂
We have a lefty in each generation: my grand-father, my dad, myself, and my son… it has always fascinated me… their is no lefty at all in my husband family… the teachers at the time tried to get my dad to write with his right hand but it did not work…
we had the parent/teacher conference last night and my son’s teacher was amazed at how neat his hand writing was in first grade (which she says is rare for a boy and especially a lefty!) my dad and I have terrible hand writing!
Catching up 😉
Baby Z is probably a leftie. I’ve been experimenting with holding a crayon or fork at about his middle and he usually grabs for it with the left. Once or twice we’ve seen him switch hands from right to left. X has always been a righty. He hardly ever used his left hand after the age of two. It’s been kind of fun to watch these types of preferences emerge in both of our kids with whom we have no genetic attachment.
Yay Baby Z! 😉
I am a proud LEFTY myself, have two nephews, from the same family, who are lefties, one actually uses both hands. neither of their parents are lefties. I was the only lefty in my family, aside from cousins, until nephews were born