Can we talk about lefties?!!

[ChandlerMom]

WRT eating and lefties: if you have one or more lefties you might consider converting to continental style with your utensils. It is more efficient for everyone and a whole lot easier for the lefties in particular. I felt right at home when we visited our relatives in Europe and had great fun teasing my mom about how funny she ate and how her elbow was in the way. :)

 

Once I found out about it as a teen, I polished my "nearly continental" lefty ways of eating to proper continental. My DH is right-handed, but his parents are from Europe, so he was raised eating continental, and we are teaching all our kids to eat that way as well. The main difference is you never have to awkwardly switch utensils between hands and the fork faces down. I'm sure you can find an easy primer on youtube if you are interested. ;)

 

Here is the descriptions from Wikipedia (you can see why the European is simpiler):

"The European style, also called the continental style, is to hold the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right. Once a bite-sized piece of food has been cut, it is conducted straight to the mouth by the left hand. The tines remain pointing down.

The knife and fork are both held with the handle running along the palm and extending out to be held by thumb and forefinger. This style is sometimes called "hidden handle" because the palm conceals the handle.

 

In the American style, also called the zig-zag method, the knife is initially held in the right hand and the fork in the left. Holding food to the plate with the fork tines-down, a single bite-sized piece is cut with the knife. The knife is then set down on the plate, the fork transferred from the left hand to the right hand, and the food is brought to the mouth for consumption. The fork is then transferred back to the left hand and the knife is picked up with the right. In contrast to the European hidden handle grip, in the American style the fork is held much like a spoon or pen once it is transferred to the right hand to convey food to the mouth."

[Walking-Iris]

I have never used left handed scissors in my life and neither have my kids and it's no big deal. About eating. I *guess* if you're being overly concerned with the proper ways of doing things then all of that means something. But jeesh for those of us living in the regular world we just cut our food and eat it and as far as manners just try to keep it neat and be polite when with company. All those rules and styles and social etiquette things are so relative anyway.

 

My dh's grandmother once said "it hurt her to watch me cut food" Um---yeah I can cut food without even thinking about it and fast too and I don't feel any awkwardness, but it "looks weird" to her so it's "wrong." There's some of the other problems with the world as well.

 

I do however agree that a right handed person needs to sit on a child's left side so they can see if you're modeling something.

 

I think the only thing my right handed mother failed to teach me was crocheting. :lol: She just could not figure out how to teach it backwards. In school---helping hurt more than anything else. I played flute in school and I recall a teacher forcing me to hold it opposite---left hand style. But no one else was doing that and it felt wrong to me. I hated being singled out like that. I've still hardly ever seen professionals doing that so I assume most left handers adapt. Same with guitars. I hold it normally. There are very few people who hold a guitar left handed or upside down and yet it's reasonable to assume that a good majority of them may be left handed. I would rather use my stronger left hand for pressing strings and my weaker right for strumming anyway. I actually throw balls and hold things like bats and golf clubs better right handed style and again I hated being forced to be a "south paw" even though it wasn't comfortable for me.

 

With lefties I think it's best to let them figure out what is most comfortable instead of assuming they need anything different or special until it's demonstrated that they might. If they have trouble with notebooks---buy the spirals on top or loose. If they don't have trouble, don't borrow it by creating a left handed environment for them. That's just my opinion.