Is Your Child Left-Handed? 7 Reasons They're at an Advantage
:extract_cover():upscale()/2017/08/14/915/n/24155406/ea684c4b59920ec6652f45.59969403_edit_img_cover_file_43856249_1502368006.jpg)
Sure, right-handers do make up the majority of the population, and while it's gotta be tough out there for our "oddball" lefties, when you think about it, their ability to adapt is pretty impressive.
My 7-year-old son is the only left-handed person in our family of six. As a righty myself, I never considered how differently a lefty approaches things, until I gave birth to my very own, but he's opened my eyes to the fact that there's a very big bias toward right-handed people. Scissors and spiral notebooks, can openers and measuring tapes, the computer keyboard and mouse, baseball gloves and video game controllers — all are made to accommodate righties. We shake with our right hands. Even cars are geared toward the right (think about the cupholder, the gear shift, the radio and climate controls).
So in honor of this underserved, underappreciated group that's just amazing at adapting to the circumstances, here are some things that actually give lefties — you guessed it — the upper hand.
They learn to be ambidextrous.
The world is made for righties, which is unfortunate if you're not one. Or maybe it isn't, since left-handed people often have no choice but to use right-handed tools and utensils, they often become adept at using both hands, which comes in handy. (Oh, the jokes.) In all seriousness, though, being able to use both hands means that if they injure their left, they're less likely to be completely sidelined by it.
They face and overcome challenges every day.
Lefties have to navigate through life in a different way than most, always mentally "translating" how to approach items made for right-handers. This means more out-of-the-box thinking and, as a result, better multitasking.
They spend less time in line.
A weird quirk of human beings in general is that we tend to choose on our dominant side: so if we're right-handed, we go right, and vice versa. Because of this, when we're faced with queues — say, a row of checkout lanes at the grocery store — most of us opt to go to the right-hand lanes, thus leaving the left lanes more sparsely populated for the people who are more likely to choose those; i.e., lefties.
They have an advantage in sports.
Since most players of any sport are right-handed, they're accustomed to training and performing with and against other right-handed people. When they come up against a southpaw, they're often caught off guard by the unexpected angle of a serve or a hit or a left hook, giving the lefty an advantage. (The legendary Babe Ruth was a lefty — 'nuff said.)
They also have an advantage when playing video games.
Research conducted by the Australian National University suggests that left-handed people outperform their righty opponents when faced with tasks involving lots of fast-moving information and stimuli, like video games. This may translate into a higher rate of success later on at more important tasks like driving, which may help explain why a 10-year, 1,500-driver study conducted by the Center For Handedness Research indicated that lefties learn to drive more quickly and have fewer accidents.
They're in good company.
Some of the world's biggest movers and shakers and epic entertainers are proud members of the left-handers' club: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Leonardo da Vinci, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Albert Einstein, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Marie Curie, Buzz Aldrin, Tina Fey, Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Beethoven, and Justin Bieber, just to name a few. Oh, and half of the US presidents since the end of World War II, including Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, which is fairly remarkable when you consider that only 10 percent of the population is left-handed.
They've overcome historical obstacles.
Left-handedness hasn't always been celebrated — there are countless stories throughout history of lefties being punished, sometimes severely, for their natural tendencies. There are negative biblical references to left-handedness, and the word "sinistral," which means "left-handed," has definite negative connotations. Even into the 20th century, left-handers were commonly retrained to use the more acceptable right hand — teachers would go so far as to tie a student's left hand behind his or her back so they had no choice but to write with the other. Still, lefties have managed to overcome their historic obstacles, and society has finally begun to realize that they aren't inferior, only different.