Who else was forced to learn to write with their right hand when you probably should've been a lefty?

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In kindergarten or first grade, the teacher had us write a couple words with each hand to determine the dominant side. The idea was one would look way worse. Mine looked the same and the teacher said I may be ambidextrous but most people are right handed so it would be easier to focus on being right handed. I got on board with that.

I can throw football/baseball with either arm, I golf right handed, shoot puck left handed, bat Lt and Rt, etc etc but I can still only write legibly with my right hand. Should have practiced both

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BlueStar78inNYC@reddit

the Latin word for left is >!sinister!<... so there's that 😂

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Select-Team-6863@reddit

I'm completely ambidexterous.

& my handwriting is equally awful with both hands.

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nomad1128@reddit

I think if both your hands suck it's called adextrous or maladroit hardy har har. I'll see myself out now

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MongoFooted@reddit

My mom swears up and down they didn’t but I’m left eye dominant and my handwriting is for shit

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nomad1128@reddit

You know, I was left eye dominant and did ball sports as a lefty, but then got some random ass benign retina thing in my left, and my eye dominance switched, like, in my fucking 30s.

So it's not a static thing, the brain is good at changing

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Ali-Sama@reddit

I am left eye dominant as well

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sugah560@reddit

I was ambidextrous when it came to writing. It was awesome. Right hand got tired, switch to left. Shitty third grade teacher convinced my parents I would be confused later in life and my penmanship would suffer if I didn’t choose a hand. Parents made me choose and forced me to only use left. My penmanship still sucks and I can’t imagine more confusing years.

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nomad1128@reddit

Choosing left for the sake of penmanship feels like wrong reasoning with wrong conclusion, lolol

The only lefties I have seen with good penmanship basically wrote vertically. Too much effort goes into avoiding ink on your arm

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nomad1128@reddit

3 point shooting champion in high school as lefty, bat/golf lefty. Left arm much stronger than right.

Writing is right hand, kicking right foot, tennis is righty, but my backhand is my only good shot. Bowling is either tbh. Mousing is either.

I dunno what I was supposed to be, my mom said she saw me using my left a lot and forced me to switch. I think this is probably bullshit bc how could she have been so attentive to my handedness but overlooked 1. Diet 2. Teaching me to read 3. Sleep routine

Anyways, my mom did nothing right except love me, and deal with things once they became a problem, but virtually nothing was preventive lol.

Parenting perfectly is hard/impossible, parenting so your kid loves you and is happy is much easier (I think)

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no_clever_name_yet@reddit

My 49 year old husband AND my 24 year old stepson. Ridiculous.

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cuentaderedd@reddit

Wow they were still doing this in the 00s?

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no_clever_name_yet@reddit

Sadly, yes.

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__dma@reddit

here! (raises left hand)

it all started when we were taught fountain pen use and there weren't any left handed pens.

my daughter is a leftie and I've been a little maniacal about making sure she has everything leftie she needs to make school easier.

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cuentaderedd@reddit

That's so nice of you 🫶🏽

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sabo81@reddit

I write left-handed and I always had to use those tiny right-handed desks throughout my school years. It was very unpleasant

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cuentaderedd@reddit

Same! So uncomfortable

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TummyLice@reddit

The computer mouse was always wired into the right side of computers. I write left but use mouse right now.

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Professional_Cry581@reddit

I'm a lefty and never even thought of this! Weirdly enough I write left, but play baseball right-handed. My little League coach tried to make me play left, it didn't work out for me, not one bit.

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cuentaderedd@reddit

That's so weird. You missed an advantage, though 😅

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cellrdoor2@reddit

My husband grew up in Uzbekistan (born in 78) and they actually tied his left hand to the desk so that he would learn to write right handed. They told him it was the devils hand.

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cuentaderedd@reddit

Wow... So sorry that happened to your husband. They probably got that from the Bible

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SuperKamiGuru824@reddit

Me! My preschool teachers noted my hand use and forced me to be righty.

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SprinklesMore6366@reddit

So sorry this happened to you. I was lucky that my teachers asked my dad if he wanted them to make me learn with my right hand and he said I should write with whatever hand I want

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jujumber@reddit

Same. I wonder if that contributed to learning difficulties.

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tomahawk66mtb@reddit

Same, and it did.

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jrunner6@reddit

Me! 🤚 If I did anything with my left hand I had to redo it with my right. I was told “it’s a right hander’s world” and I’d be better off learning to be right handed. I’m not very athletic but I do still throw with my left. I can throw decently with my right, but left is more natural.

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sweeneyty@reddit

core memory...of a giant wooden wall hanging spoon thwacking me..

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Bl4nkV01d@reddit

Only one teacher, thankfully.

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psilosophist@reddit

What no that's child abuse.

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Old-Rice_NotLong4788@reddit

I was ambidextrous but would get into trouble every time I was caught using my left hand.

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Traditional_Entry183@reddit

My mom. She had her knuckles beaten with a ruler by nuns in the 1950s.

Im not a true lefty myself. I write and draw right handed. But there are lots of other things in life I've always only done left handed, and I can do most things lefty better than most right handed people. Not ambidextrous though.

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SoloMotorcycleRider@reddit

I'm a lefty and still wrote using my left hand when my left arm was broken. I just couldn't pitch in baseball. :(

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Birantis1@reddit

Me. It didn’t work - I am still very left handed, but I was regularly caned on my left hand so it was too painful to write with.

I have really shit handwriting now.

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karaloveskate@reddit

Me. I used to be left handed. But my first grade teacher didn’t like that. Really pissed my mom off.

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yerfatma@reddit

Me. My one year not in Catholic school (kindergarten) they put me on some half ass skateboard, spun me til I fell off and then declared whatever hand I put down was my dominant hand and not the thing I slapped down to save my face from contact with a cement floor.

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yerfatma@reddit

I spent a lot of Catholic school with teachers inviting other teachers in to have a good stare at the righty who wrote with a left handed claw.

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Mtndrums@reddit

I KNEW I wasn't the only one!

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jessek@reddit

My grandpa was

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theforestbather@reddit

My grandmother was ambidextrous because of this. They stopped doing it before I got to school, thankfully. However, one thing that always ticked me off was that "left handed" scissors never were actually left-handed, they just had more comfortable handles. To be truly left-handed the blades have to be swapped; Learned this at age 30 when my husband bought me some. Life changer!

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t3hwookiee@reddit

Another whose kindergarten teacher smacked their hand with a ruler when trying to use the left hand. I hated her. Really old lady who hated kids acting like kids.

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OldCreezy@reddit (OP)

All of these responses are validating and awesome! Side note: my daughter is 15 and was a hardcore southpaw from the time she was born! It's nice to know there are others! I make it work but my wife jokes that my handwriting looks like a serial killer's. I fucking love this sub and the people in it.

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DHammer79@reddit

A lefty from 1979 here. Never was forced. My parents most likely would have had a conniption fit of the school tried, especially my mother.

Still have shitty penmanship, though, also the amount of ink I rubbed onto my left hand could write War and Peace.

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TK-385@reddit

I was always right handed but I have used my left hand for other tasks. I can sort of write with my left hand though no where near as well with my right. But sometimes I'll use my left hand on a mouse if my right hand is doing something else. Interestingly I can use my left hand to paint miniatures if I want to, it helps that I have steady hands.

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Britown@reddit

Me. I can write with both hands but prefer my right hand now. I box Southpaw, however.

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CY83rdYN35Y573M2@reddit

This is similar for me. I'm pretty ambidextrous, and when I was learning to write, I would switch hands indiscriminately. My dad (a lefty himself) felt that if I could do either one, I should go with the right. But that's mostly because he went through his own lefty trauma back when lefty-specific tools were non-existent. Years later, when I was struggling at baseball, he told me I probably should have been a lefty.

Now I do some things righty, some things lefty. Just whichever felt more comfortable at the point I was learning that particular skill or activity.

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MrThouu@reddit

Yup. And I appreciate this thread and the replies, I had no idea this was so common. I also had really bad handwriting up until around 17-19, but I don't know if it's due to this or something else.

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Candid-Jellyfish-975@reddit

This must've been regional. I grew up in a suburb of minneapolis. Two older half brothers one of whom was born without a thumb on his right hand and it was deformed some as well. So he is left handed by default. His younger brother is also left handed. The younger one has always had really bad have writing. As an adult he's now come to the conclusion that he should've been right handed but learned how to do so much from his big brother that he just took on his left handedness. This younger older half brother of mine taught me to shoot a slingshot. I learned to shoot a bow at camp though. Extremely similar movement but I can't do either one the other way. Bow right, sling shot left. And I'm left eye dominant but right handed.

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Grand_Introduction36@reddit

Yes!! And it caused some trauma i continue with to this day

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Muddauberer@reddit

Not the same, but I was forced to hold my pencil differently. I was even given a little gripper thing to put on my pencil.

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VampirateV@reddit

Yep, happened to me too. Still write with my right, but ambidextrous for most other tasks. It's difficult for me to play pool or shoot a firearm though, bc it seems like there's a disconnect between hand-eye for things like that. I'm better at lining up a left handed shot on a pool table, but have better control with my right arm 🫠 Pretty sure I also have binocular vision disorder too though, so that might be part of it. Waiting till the new year to get that tested.

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Minouris@reddit

I'm lucky enough that the nuns were on their way out when I went to school in the 80s, and corporal punishment had been made illegal.

My mother was forced to write with her right hand by threat of the wooden ruler, and it messed her up badly - writing backwards and getting words mixed up levels of bad.

I'm somewhat ambidextrous when it comes to most things, but if I try to write with my right hand then I start to get a headache pretty quickly!

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Pale_Macaron_7014@reddit

I started school in 1986 and the principal had his whupping cane in a display box mounted above his desk. Must have been hard to let go of the fond memories.

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Minouris@reddit

Pretty sure at least some people become teachers because kids are easy to bully... Not all teachers, obviously, but some of them seemed to really enjoy dishing out punishment.

Pink Floyd said it best :p

When we grew up and went to school There were certain teachers who would Hurt the children any way they could By pouring their derision on everything we did Exposing every weakness, however carefully hidden By the kids

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Significant-Block260@reddit

My dad (who was born in 1946) was for the first few years, and said he developed a stutter that he attributed to that. Then after they stopped trying to force him to use his right hand the stutter went away too.

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Pale_Macaron_7014@reddit

There are links between language and handedness that I can’t claim to understand (if it is even well understood yet) but it’s interesting:

https://www.mpi.nl/news/large-study-compares-brains-left-handers-and-right-handers

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Myrtle_Snow_@reddit

Wow I’m surprised by this. I’m a lefty and I wasn’t shamed for it at all except for the occasional flippant “why can’t you just do it right handed?” Or “so and so is left handed and they don’t have a problem” when I’d point out that I was struggling more with something bc I was trying to learn it backwards.

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flytingnotfighting@reddit

Me! Hands my left hand tied down

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Pale_Macaron_7014@reddit

My partner. Some rubbish about the devil being on your left shoulder.

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GarminTamzarian@reddit

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TransportationOk657@reddit

I was forced to write left-handed after I broke my right arm when I was 7. We were doing a lot of assignments writing the alphabet (cursive I think), so I had to do them as a lefty!

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Gian_Luck_Pickerd@reddit

Did you go back to right writing after you healed?

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TransportationOk657@reddit

I did. I was able to write pretty decent with my left hand for a while. Once I stopped doing it consistently, though, I lost it.

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greendocklight@reddit

In kindergarten and first grade I switched back and forth for writing. In first grade, my teacher noticed and got in my face and said, "I'm going to make your life easier" and enforced the use of my right hand only for the rest of the year. I tried to keep up left hand use for a few years but never learned cursive with it.

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JontyDante@reddit

Wow I didn’t realise this was so common

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2gecko1983@reddit

Nobody seemed to have a problem with me being left handed. I actually made it a point to learn to write & (most recently) eat with my right hand, on my own. It’s a work in progress, but at least I know I won’t be SOL if I can’t use my left hand.

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xt0rt@reddit

Nope, thankfully.

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Moxie_Stardust@reddit

Yep, '77, a school in the Midwest made me switch.

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Financial-Yak-4172@reddit

My 8th grade math teacher had this done to him. Also his handwriting was awful.

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Brent_L@reddit

It’s hard being a lefty in a right handed world

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ChiefBroady@reddit

My then friend back in Germany is a lefty and he wasn’t forced to write with his right.

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conace21@reddit

My grandfather (1912) and Dad (1944) were both left-handed. I honestly don't know if they were ever forced to use their right hands, and unfortunately, there's nobody left that I could ask. I do remember my grandfather didn't have the "lefty hook" like my Dad did. Gramps would turn the paper at a sharp angle to avoid running his hand through the ink.

My older brother (1971) was ambidextrous, and he was encouraged/forced to use his right hand. But strangely enough, he used the "lefty hook" with his right hand. My aunt was a kindergarten teacher, and she was the one who noticed and said that he might he left-handed/ambidextrous.

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maggie320@reddit

No thank goodness. I had to learn to write with my right hand twice when I injured my left hand. Not fun.

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Imaginary_Attempt_82@reddit

My dad but he’s a boomer. Teachers never gave me a hard time about being a lefty

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aliceinadreamyland@reddit

They tried but it didn’t work, I was ambidextrous until a TBI a few years ago. So in a way I’m thankful.

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RivkaMila@reddit

My teacher smacked my hand with a ruler because I kept using my left hand. My mom came into the school and had a few choice words with her and the principal. She never did it again. Another problem I had was kids taking all of the lefty scissors because they had green handles and the righty scissors were plain.

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PilotC150@reddit

I wasn’t forced to write right-handed, but my teachers definitely didn’t have any help for me. I was pretty much on my own. I did get some criticism for my handwriting but there weren’t any tips on how to handle the difference.

Fortunately, my dad was left handed so at least my parents understood the challenge I was having.

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