To be angry at DP's comment about lefthandedness

[Skoggy]

We have recently started DD1 on using knife and fork for dinner. She is doing alright with it but keeps having a problem when starting the meal as to which utensil goes in what hand.

Personally, I'm of the frame of mind that she holds them in whatever hand is comfortable for her. She is 2½. DP insists, point blankly, that she holds them the way righthanded people do as, and I quote "The other way is the wrong way. She needs to learn how to do it properly". This made me stupidly angry because I am lefthanded.

Are there some people out there who still think that being a lefty is wrong?

I'm left handed, but I use my fork with my left hand, and my knife with my right.

I use a spoon with my left hand.

I'm afraid I definitely judge (adult) people by the way they hold their cutlery. There is a right way and a wrong way, no matter how much people try to say differently.

The American way is just wrong, plain wrong.

I can't believe people were punished for being left handed. That is awful.
And I can't believe so many people think it is a problem. I've never seen anyone being kicked out of a restaurant for holding your knife and fork the wrong way. I don't eat out very often but when I do it's a treat and I will be busy concentrating on the good food and the enjoying the company of friends not judging others on their social skills.

While it can hardly matter whether the fork and knife hands are reversed for lefties - or righties for that matter - the holding of the knife like pen makes me cringe.

Slightly off-topic, but when our leftie DD was at the childminder's from 7 months to to 2 years, she held a pencil/crayon correctly, with ease. Within weeks of going to nursery she'd adopted to clenched fist style and her handwriting, when it eventually emerged, was dire. Having said that, with no intervention of any kind, her handwriting is now excellent.

What pointythings said. Why aren't more people saying it?

The majority make the rules, and the minority are expected to confirm to them. They are criticised and suspected when they don't.

The American way is just wrong, plain wrong.

It's the same with languages you know. Most of the people in the world speak some native gibberish instead of english.

BTW, a huge number of American presidents have been left handed, much more so that the 10% of the general population who are left handed.

My theory on this is because living in a predominantly right handed world, lefties need to learn to be adaptable and to utilise both sides of their brain effectively.

I have seen it myself in my own, very large organisation. Of the top 6 individuals in our place, 4 are left handed (being left handed, I notice these things). Not only that, but when I was in a meeting with 4 senior women in the organisation (of which I am one), all four of us were left handed. I would love to do a PHD on this.

So perhaps the OP's DH is actually helping their DD to utilise both sides of her brain with the knife & fork issue (or should that be fork & knife?)

I actually think that 2 1/2 is probably quite young to have fixed ideas on handedness or indeed table manners wrt cutlery. IME, around age 6 is when they are old enough to start finessing the art of using cutlery as opposed to merely having a stab at using it before then.

I'm not sure it really matters manners wise, DS is left handed and eats the 'wrong' way round, he does however chew with his mouth closed, keep his elbows of the table, put his cutlery down properly at the end of the meal and ask politely if he wants something passed to him which to me is far more important.

However, it is a pain in the bum when we eat out as he always sits the wrong side of DD and then they fight over elbows bumping. (its ok at home because they always sit in the same places) but then I'm pretty convinced they look for things to fight over.

Im with those saying dont worry OP it's not a major problem. Your DH is BU.
Am interested in the genetic issue as my dd might be left handed (but too young to say really) but the only left hander I know is my dad and sadly he is the most cack handed clumsy person I know, stabbing ineffectually at cellophane wrapping with a sharp knife etc. I hope this is simply because he's a bit rubbish at that sort of stuff rather than it being anything to do surf being left handed.

YANBU - and I say that as a left hander who holds her knife and fork the "right" handed way. Dh is also left handed but he is swapped over - he uses his fork on his right hand with his knife in his left.

My argument is that it is right handers who've got it the wrong way round, as it is the left hand doing the fine important work - finding my mouth!

If either of us are using a knife, spoon or fork on its own, then it will be in our left hand. The only challenge I have with eating the "right handed" way is that I can't use a spoon and fork together very elegantly easily, as I'm not used to a fork in my right hand

Interestingly, our right handed ds has copied his dad and eats with his knife and fork in his left and right hands respectively.