To think it doesn’t really matter how I hold my cutlery.

[Frosty2894]

With all the things going on in the world right now, I’m writing a post about how we hold cutlery.

I remember being told I’m cack handed by my grandmother when I was a child 🤨 she didn’t say it in a nasty way but said she was similar.

I’m right handed. I hold my fork in my right hand and knife in left. This is the way I’ve always done it and felt comfortable, was never told or taught the correct way.

For years my partner has joked about how I can’t hold a knife and fork properly and even mentioned trying it the other way. I’ve tried - it doesn’t feel right to me. He told me that his mother would probably tell me to switch hands as it’s her ‘pet gate’. We’ve been together for 9 years. He’s not mentioned it for a while (until tonight) and I’ve avoided eating in front of his mother as much as possible else I feel paranoid. Feel like I’m being watched!

Generally my table manners are okay I think. I’m not a complete slob when It comes to eating or anything!

Aibu to think it really doesn’t matter? Partner has mentioned it tonight and does it really bleddy matter?!

I'm a paediatric OT and spend a lot of time working on fine motor skills. I've recently found out that I tie shoes left handed, have a sub-optimal pen grasp and hold scissors wrongly.
If I'm teaching a child from scratch I try to encourage whatever grip is generally easiest and requires least effort. If they have a way that works for them then we try to make it easier - either for now or for the future. A non standard pen grip is more likely to make writing harder work so they record less and tend not to evidence their best work.
If you've sat your exams with a weird pen grip and reached adulthood without starving through inability to use cutlery and other kitchen implements, crack on. It's clearly working for you!

YANBU.

If I knew you were right handed, I would be a little surprised that you hold the cutlery "left handed". But no more than that. I think any claims of "manners" that prescribe which hand to use for a task must be an obsolete hangover from the days when left-handers were viewed as satanic.

@Pukkatea

It's yet another example of how etiquette only exists to put people in their place rather than any actual logical reason. Table manners - don't slurp your food or chew with your mouth open or anything else that someone could find disgusting or put them off their meal. Anything else is pure snobbery and etiquette sticklers are frankly pretentious bores who need to find hobbies.

Well, except if you’re in South East Asia...where not slurping your food is considered a sign of disrespect to the chef / indicates lack of enjoyment.

Cultural relativism eh.

The worst "table manners" include watching other people eat, judging them and mentioning it.

Hold your cutlery the way that makes it easiest to eat - the rude ones with poor etiquette are those who judge and make comments.

Queen Victoria famously drank her finger bowl when a visiting dignitary didn't realise what it was and drank his. She did it so that he would not be humiliated and embarrassed - that's what true good manners look like.

@Jessicabrassica

I'm a paediatric OT and spend a lot of time working on fine motor skills. I've recently found out that I tie shoes left handed, have a sub-optimal pen grasp and hold scissors wrongly. If I'm teaching a child from scratch I try to encourage whatever grip is generally easiest and requires least effort. If they have a way that works for them then we try to make it easier - either for now or for the future. A non standard pen grip is more likely to make writing harder work so they record less and tend not to evidence their best work. If you've sat your exams with a weird pen grip and reached adulthood without starving through inability to use cutlery and other kitchen implements, crack on. It's clearly working for you!

The weird thing is I do use my fork in the right and hold my pen in a ‘weird’ fashion.

I’d say as long as I am getting food to my mouth and not on your lap or the table, not talking with my mouth full etc then why does it matter? Why died it look ‘uncouth’ being in one hand rather than the other. I literally cannot do anything with my left hand very well.

@Lemonpiano

What is considered "correct" is culturally specific. And meaningless.

I have no time for people who get uptight about this or use it to try and make other people feel small. It's pathetic.

This, exactly.

Etiquette evolves, and the etiquette regarding eating with your knife in your right hand is part of the same anti-lefthandedness that previously meant left-handers were forced to write with the right hand. (I have a few examples of that in my family, and not as long ago as you might think, either.)

I'm mixed handed and eat with my knife in my left hand. I don't find it comfortable eating the other way around. I'm neat and tidy while eating, so I don't give a fuck if people are stupid enough to judge me for it.

Judging by the replies on here, how you hold your cutlery wouldn’t matter to a lot of people. However, clearly it does to your partner, probably because he knows his DM will judge you for it.

As lots of PP have mentioned, etiquette and ‘correct’ table manners are social constructs. To me this doesn’t mean they should therefore be ignored - the idea that ‘since people from different cultures have different table manners, why should any of it matter’ shows ignorance because surely it would be far better to become culturally informed and adjust your manners to the context.

So yes, in British culture, there are right ways and wrong ways of holding cutlery. You say you weren’t taught these, but your DP and his DM were, and she - as a result of her generation and class - is judging you for it. Your DP is concerned about it, probably because he was berated by her about it when he was growing up.

Whether or not you care about being judged about it is really up to you. Personally I wouldn’t care about strangers but I wouldn’t have a battle over this in my immediate family. I would let my husband know that I understood where he and his DM were coming from but I would also explain that that cultural patrimony was missing from my background and rather than making me feel bad about it, we should agree to differ.

If however you would like to make your MIL feel at ease in your company - and why not, she’s your MIL and your DH’s DM - you could always do the Queen Victoria trick mentioned above and do what your MIL does just when you’re with her.

You're presumably an adult and as such, regardless of how you ate as a child, as an adult it's encumbent on you to have the basic knowledge and application of such basic etiquette of how to hold cutlery!
Fgs, children in nursery are taught this!

@MotherExtraordinaire

You're presumably an adult and as such, regardless of how you ate as a child, as an adult it's encumbent on you to have the basic knowledge and application of such basic etiquette of how to hold cutlery! Fgs, children in nursery are taught this!

Why is it incumbent?

I wasn't taught in nursery or by parents.

As long as people eat in a clean and tidy way, why does it matter?

Thanks all. Nice to know I’m not the only one. I think my table manners are okay otherwise. If I was to try swap hands I’d probably make a mess 🤣

I wasn’t taught any different by my parents. I was never taught in nursery or school probably because for one I didn’t go to nursery and when I went to school I never ate the school dinners and had a panicked lunch the vast majority of the time!

@KyraGoose

I'm right handed but wear my watch on my right wrist. I'm forever being told that's wrong.

Just because it's different doesn't mean its wrong.

Me too. I always eat with my right hand as well. I can't do it another way.

What does it matter? Just an excuse for judging/classifying.

I'm right handed and also hold my fork in my right hand. No one has ever commented negatively but usually ask me if I'm left handed . Also, everyone knows when I've laid the table as I automatically put the forks on the right !

In a restaurant I unconsciously swap as soon as I pick the cutlery up. At home I set it the way I want as my wife is exactly the same. Life is too short to worry about what hand you hold your knife 😄

There is nothing wrong with eating like a left-hander. Holding cutlery like a pen was frowned upon when I was growing up (in the 50s) as it shouted bad table manners and therefore denoted someone of a lower social class who probably shovelled their peas, put their elbows on the table and chewed with their mouth open. Those social mores have nearly died out but some of the older generation still see them as desirable and your MIL probably belongs in this group and sees holding your cutlery in 'the wrong hands' as being on the slippery slope. I'd get your husband on side and then ignore her!

Sorry but I would find this very bad table manners if you were eating out somewhere, or in a social setting with friends. If that’s how you eat at home it’s your business but if I saw someone eating like this in a restaurant I’d be . And it would be rubbish to say you can’t, how do you think kids learn in the first place, it’s all about practice. I’m a bit shit with chopsticks for instance when I haven’t used them for a while but with a bit of practice again it doesn’t take too long to pick it up properly. I would consider you being rude to eat like this outside your own home, it shows a disregard for social norms and disrespect to your hosts and general laziness that you can’t be bothered spending a bit of time learning to do it properly.

Meh not sure what you mean by shovel (holding it so the prongs are horizontal and can carry food easily?), although it's more sensible than the contrived act of delicately trying to balance food on the slanted 45 degree back of a fork. We don't use spoons upside down.

Humans and the bullshit rules we invent ...

Finally! This!

No. It does not matter at all.

Chewing with your mouth open or talking with your mouth full while eating with others, that matters! Because it's revolting to have to watch.
Someone using a knife and fork switched round is totally unimportant beyond oh gasp shock horror but manners

I'm right handed but with left handed leanings, I think my family (no left handers) just thought that was why I ate the wrong way round and didn't think to try to correct. I don't think you can suddenly re-learn something like this as an adult, for all the PPs suggesting it.

It's rarely commented on, possibly because people have manners, rather than because no one ever notices. I would prefer if I had been taught the other way. I do quite a few things "cack handed" though and I am left eye dominant, possibly I just wouldn't have got it. Plenty of left handers eat the "correct" way though.

The only time it has been an issue was once at a fancy fish restaurant which had fish knives sharpened down one side which I simply could not use.

The anti left handed views you hear in Britain are very very bizarre.

I’m left handed, I eat with my left hand only, it still surprises me when I’m writing, using a mouse etc when people say “oh, I didn’t know you were a leftie” usually in a disapproving tone. Or the surprised tone when I can write very neatly, I’m left handed, I’m not a caveman.

We had a lunch once with three prospective employees to get to know them a bit better, one found it appropriate to spend the meal watching others and making an unpleasant expression. We tend to find those that judge people for merely eating are arseholes generally, so it weeds them out quite well.

I don't see what's wrong with making an effort to hold your knife and fork properly tbh. Other cultures hold each other up to high standards and I'm not sure why that's so wrong. We can all pretend we don't judge or it's no big deal but there IS an established way to hold a knife and fork so why not just follow it?

I also naturally put my fork in my right hand . My family never mentioned it to me and I never noticed that I was swapping them over.
It was pointed out to me as a teen, and made me feel ashamed, at which point I made a concerted effort to eat "correctly". Now I can eat neatly either way but still fork in the right feels more natural.
I don't know why it matters in all honesty.
Also most people use a fork in the right if they are not using a knife eh. Just stabbing at chips.
I agree that it is far more rude to comment on someone else's table manners than to put your fork in your right hand.

So long as you don't hold it like a ruddy pen....

It matters the example you set in front of children. If only to avoid them being teased at school and in other social situations. What you do when eating alone as long as it is hygienic is no-one's business.