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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

SiL is trying to "correct" nephew's being left-handed

112 replies

BadLad · 07/02/2015 10:39

Ever since he was a few months old, my in-laws have noticed and remarked with some concern that my youngest nephew reached for things with his left hand for the most part.

Now he is very nearly four, and they are actually telling him to stop and use his right hand when he eats, scribbles with a pencil or uses anything like scissors.

He loves eating, so he had always been (to my inexpert eyes) very good at feeding himself. He has graduated out of chopsticks with finger holes to normal child-chopsticks very young. But they make him hold them and his fork (when he isn't using a knife) in his right hand.

It doesn't seem to cause him much frustration, but AIBU to think this is wrong. I've asked why they are doing this, and SiL says it will be easier to get things for right-handed people in future. That seems a bit weak to me - plenty of people here are left-handed so they are catered for.

It just seems a bit hard on him to me.

OP posts:

DropYourSword · 07/02/2015 13:43

I don't know if they even teach this in schools any longer, but when I was learning to write they encouraged us to put a "finger space" between each word. You'd have to literally put your finger on the page at the end of your last word, them start writing the next one beside your finger. That's fine if you're right handed, but I struggled all year with that rule, and was too young to figure out why it was so much more complicated for me.

If finger spaces are still used, all parents of left handed kids should be told this!!

smellsofelderberries · 07/02/2015 13:51

They're being very weird, and really need to let him get on with being left handed.

My youngest nephew is ambidextrous at almost 4 and my sister was saying his music teacher is trying to get him to 'pick' a hand. I told my sister to leave encourage his writing skill with both hands.

HeartShapedBox · 07/02/2015 13:59

what sort of specialist equipment do left handers need, then?

I'm left handed and never used anything special in my life.

DropYourSword · 07/02/2015 14:08

The only thing I ever got that was 'left handed' was a chequebook. And only for the novelty value because it was available. Used to confuse bank tellers!

Thumbwitch · 07/02/2015 14:11

I thought scissors were the big bugbear for left handers because you have to put pressure on them differently - I know I have more troubles using nail scissors with my left hand, because you're changing the angle of pressure.

HeartShapedBox · 07/02/2015 14:20

I just use regular scissors, in my left hand.
never had a problem.

the only problem I had was having to write with pencil in primary school, used to have the entire side of my left hand permanently lead grey and the page was just a big smear

HeartShapedBox · 07/02/2015 14:20

I just use regular scissors, in my left hand.
never had a problem.

the only problem I had was having to write with pencil in primary school, used to have the entire side of my left hand permanently lead grey and the page was just a big smear

Original poster

BadLad · 07/02/2015 14:36

Maybe this discussion will give OP some ideas how she could broach this. Sounds like it would sound better if the evidence came from someone who speaks the misguided mother's language.

HE does speak the mother's language - she doesn't speak mine. Will read that - thanks for the link. My wife speaks English - I can show it to her too.

OP posts:

Rowgtfc72 · 07/02/2015 15:35

Dd was a leftie from a few months. No problems developmentally just a leftie!

SistersOfPercy · 07/02/2015 15:56

Ds was a leftie from a few months as well. By the time he came to feed himself my fil had to bend teaspoons in a vice for him because curved feeding spoons are all designed right handed (or at least were back then).

That was his only issue and as soon as he got his adapted spoons he was happy as Larry.

CalicoBlue · 07/02/2015 16:04

Many Asian countries encourage or force their children to become right-handed due to cultural perceptions of bad luck associated with the left hand.

It sounds as if it is a cultural issue. If the culture in Japan believes that eating with the left hand is impolite and using the left hand for writing is unlucky, I can understand their motivation for doing this.

Don't think there is much you can do about it.

wowfudge · 07/02/2015 16:38

Flomple your post is pretty upsetting to me as a left handed in the 21st century. Referring to eating with cutlery the 'normal' way round and 'gently encouraging' this just seems illustrate prejudice against left handedness.

I take it your references to 'the right way' mean 'the correct way' too.

It's just different from what you do. Not wrong in anyway.

DisappointedOne · 07/02/2015 17:13

I'm left handed. So is my dad so I was never ever encouraged to switch. Handed was is linked to so much in terms of brain development.

I had no problems learning to play instruments right handed. No problems with using scissors or bottle openers. Inoculations went in my right arm (I'd have to tell the nurse). I'm now 37 and only a few things get on my wick. Cameras and camcorders are designed for right handed folk. Cutting bread with a right handed bread knife is a disaster. Writing in a ring bound notepad is awkward. Hardly end of the world stuff.

I doubt I'd be as musical or creative had my handedness been stifled.

Doesn't everyone eat with a fork in their left hand anyway? My RH mum, sister, hubby and daughter all do. I don't know any righties who hold the fork in their right hand.

They are being downright cruel. (I was secretly upset when dd showed herself to be right handed, but there's far more in the world to worry about.)

DisappointedOne · 07/02/2015 17:16

Ps - there's a lot of (religious) superstition about the left hand side. Right hand of God leaves the left for the devil all that bollocks.

The heart is on the left. That's all I need know. :)

ourglass · 07/02/2015 18:03

Flomple, there is no right or wrong way to use a knife and fork, apart from however the user naturally sees fit. Fact.

ourglass · 07/02/2015 18:04

As in holding the knife and fork in whichever hand the user sees fit, not the actual handling of a knife and fork, which their are 'correct' ways for.

leedy · 07/02/2015 18:34

"my eldest showed a preference for her left hand from just a few months and it was simply down to her being left handed (now aged 9) nothing else."

Ditto DS1 (now 5), it was definitely obvious before a year that he was a leftie. No noticeable issues with his other arm/hand, he's pretty dextrous with both - does climbing, etc.

DP's grandfather was forced to write with his right hand as a child and was still pissed off about it in his 80s....

Hoppinggreen · 07/02/2015 18:45

I have a few Chinese friends ( UK born) and although they are all very westernised they have an aversion to left handed people.
I asked one of them why once and she wasn't really sure but that using your left hand was " rude". Another friend was telling me how she had turned someone down who had asked her out. She gave a list of reasons why, on sof which was he was left handed!!!
Obviously it's not right but it seems that this is very ingrained in some cultures and you can try to change this but I doubt you will unfortunately.
These friends were born and raised in the UK and some were 2 generation uk born but they still have this deep seated distrust of left handed people.
Very sad for your nephew.

BMW6 · 07/02/2015 18:50

Bad, bad thing to do. Plenty of evidence and research on Internet to give facts why you should not try to change handedness.

Getting through the culteral stigma may be a major problem though - poor child. Still, if they want to fuck up their childs development and risk his potential......

BMW6 · 07/02/2015 18:51

cultural

Flomple · 07/02/2015 18:57

ok sorry re right and wrong way to hold cutlery. I didn't mean to offend anyone, it's just what I was taught and a quick google says Debrett's says the same.
www.debretts.com/british-etiquette/food-drink/table-manners/how-use-cutlery (you might need to click forward a page)

I think it's unfair to be accused of being offensive and unfactual over something that is so clearly stated in such a mainstream source on these things.

TooManyMochas · 07/02/2015 20:06

DP's grandfather was forced to write with his right hand as a child and was still pissed off about it in his 80s...

Mine too. Now he can't write at all with his left, but never really learnt to write legibly with his right either. His hand writing is the stuff of legend in our family!

Alisvolatpropiis · 07/02/2015 20:12

Flompie, don't worry, I'm left handed and wasn't offended by your initial post. There is a normal way to use a knife and fork, otherwise people wouldn't so often notice handedness for the first time in others when eating.

Interesting to learn that it is considered rude to use chopsticks in your left hand! Although I hold a knife and fork like a right handed person, I hold chopsticks in my left hand. As I do with pens, toothbrushes and cigarettes.

Apparently handedness is on a sliding scale (I read some studies on it once) and the level of left/right handedness can vary quite a lot from person to person, which I found interesting.

I do feel for your little nephew op and also his mum, who is just trying to avoid her son being affected by the outdated cultural issues surrounding being left handed.

FryOneFatManic · 07/02/2015 20:46

Doesn't everyone eat with a fork in their left hand anyway? My RH mum, sister, hubby and daughter all do. I don't know any righties who hold the fork in their right hand.

I'm mixed handed, and I hold the fork in my left hand. I'd struggle massively to hold a knife and fork the other way round.

FryOneFatManic · 07/02/2015 20:48

..Pressed too soon

DS is right handed andd hold his cutlery the same way I do, however we do actually hold them in the right positions.

Meanwhile my right handed DD actually holds her knife in her right hand, fork in her left, but holds the cutlery at what most people consider would be really awkward positions. She seems more noticeable than DS and I when eating.

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