It’s one of those milestone moments when, propped into his high-chair, your little one begins to feed himself. As he grips the spoon and attempts the tricky business of navigation, some of his food will be poked in his eye, in his ear, up his nose or dropped on the floor. And some, probably once he has cast the spoon away in disgust, will finally find its way to his mouth, thrust in with his fist.
But as you lament the end of the era of kitchen cleanliness, did you notice how he did it? Was it the chubby little fingers of his right hand that determinedly gripped the spoon? Or, did he use his left? Possibly you will only have noticed if you yourself are a leftie. A left-handed mum or dad would be acutely aware of the significance as they dexterously peeled the veg for his meal with a right-handed vegetable peeler.
So what? You may ask. What difference does it make, anyway? Well perhaps it’s not quite such an issue today, but had he been born fifty years or more ago, a left-handed grip may well have had the mashed carrot hit the mouli. Back in the 1940’s a child would have his knuckles rapped if he wrote with his left hand and it was not uncommon for a teacher to tie a child’s left arm to his chair to ‘correct’ his left-handed ways.
Indeed throughout history left-handers have experienced discriminations that have even filtered through to our language. Historically, the left side, and subsequently left-handedness, was considered negative in many cultures. The Latin word sinistra originally meant ‘left’ but took on the meaning of ‘evil’ by the Classical Latin era. It survives in the English language today as the word sinister. Interestingly, the Latin word for right-handed is dexter as in ‘dexterity’ with an English meaning of skill in the use of the hands.
The French for left is gauche, which in English indicates awkwardness, as does two-left-feet. And then there is the left-handed-compliment, which is not considered a compliment at all.
Is it appropriate then to consider the left-handed of our society ‘the last neglected minority’ as they have been called? Being left-handed is not the taboo it was in days-gone-by and we no longer see teachers being anti-left-handed in the classroom. Also, many of a left-handers daily frustrations can easily be overcome with the availability of specially adapted equipment such as left-handed scissors, kitchen knives, corkscrews, fishing reels, even left-handed chequebooks and boomerangs.
But whilst life for the leftie is undoubtedly easier than in the past, it is not struggle free. More than one in ten children face an ‘enormous hurdle’ when they start school because they are left-handed, says Lauren Milsom, author of Your Left- Handed Child (published by Hamlyn). She claims that children are often incorrectly diagnosed with dyslexia because of their difficulties with writing and because teachers do not know what to look for.
‘A child may struggle with tying their shoelaces or using scissors or writing because they are left-handed. but they will not know they are left-handed, so once they see their friends doing it and that they can’t, they will give more quickly and become more frustrated.’ She added, ‘ A whole range of problems could be solved if teachers were simply told to ask their pupils which they felt more comfortable with whenever they see a child struggling with something, be it a pen or a mouse.’
Some problems in the classroom are easily rectified. Thirteen-year-old left-handed Faye says,‘The worst thing about being left-handed in school is sitting at my desk writing. You constantly bump elbows with the right-hander beside you. It’s so annoying.’ Sitting left-handed students at the left of a double desk, or at the left end of a row is an easy solution here. Another easy fix is adding a simple piece of software to the desktop in ICT to swap the functionality of the two buttons of the mouse, making it left-hand friendly.
As is often the case with those who face adversity, a high percentage of left-handers achieve greatness. Four out of the last seven US presidents have been left-handed. The US National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that among graduates the earning power of left-handed men is 15% greater than that of men who are right-handed.
Lauren Milsom believes part of the reason why left-handed people succeed is because of the obstacles put in their path. ‘The big advantage to being left-handed,’ she says, ‘is that you have to overcome situations organised against you, so you become adaptable, you think around things and you think outside the box: “That doesn’t work for me so how can I make it work for me?” It’s a good trait to have.’And, when you think about it, if the right half of the brain controls the left half of the body, then that must mean that it’s only the left-handed that are in their right mind after all.
USEFUL WEBSITES
www.anythinglefthanded.co.uk
www.lefthandedchildren.org
www.lefthandersday.com 44
