edited to add 2 more polls at the bottom
THE NUMBERS
Hubby and I are left-handed, and so are 4 of our 9 children. Maybe even 5. We’re still waiting on Bethany to make up her mind. Babies can be so indecisive.
I know those stats are way off from the average. I believe estimates of how many people are left-handed vary from 3-10% of the population, and our household has at least 54%. Now I’m wondering if our family is a collective freak of nature – wait, don’t answer that – or if “handedness” can be hereditary. I know theories abound, but there seems to be very little proof for any of them.
WHY?
I have heard that being left-handed is sometimes connected to a lack of oxygen or other trauma at birth. Yes, I’m left-handed. Quit snickering. I was nearly 10 lbs, and was born with the aid of forceps. Out of the 14 children in my parents family, only one other is left-handed. He was over 10 lbs, and was very slow to start breathing. The theory seems to hold in my parents’ family.
I don’t think my mother-in-law had a particularly hard time with hubby’s birth, but he was her first, and first labors are often the hardest. He also tells me that he was more ambidextrous than just left-handed, but his parents thought it was cute for him to use his left hand and encouraged him to do so.
I also can’t help but wonder if it can be learned. My children see me eat and write with my left hand. Maybe I instinctively place the fork or pencil in their left hand, subtly encouraging them to favor that hand?
MY FAVORITE THEORY
This doesn’t explain why a person favors a certain hand, but I think I have noticed a pattern that can predict which hand a person will favor.
You know the whorl of hair on a baby’s head? You can often still see it on adults and children with very short hair. It’s usually on the left side, so a person’s hair naturally parts to the left. I think many left-handers have a whorl or part on the right side instead. Check it out. Ask a few random people who part their hair on the right side, if you can find any. They’re in the minority, and in my admittedly limited surveys, I have found that something like 50% are left handed.
What do you think?
A POLL
I thought a few polls might satisfy our curiosity. Please feel free to answer as many times as you like, not just for your own family but for any others for which you know the answer.
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My inlaws have 12 children and 8 of them are left handed but both parents are right handed. One of the kids is ambidextrous (she is 9 now) No trauma at birth, and yes their was a 11 lbs baby but he use is right hand!
I was born 9 weeks early (my parents had a car accident that put my mother in labor) and I eat and right with my right hand but use the left one for sports and everything else, I also prefer to paint and draw with my left, so who know if trauma at birth was related?
So far our children can’t make up their mind about using left or right!!!
My dad is left handed, and is the only one in his family who is/was (two members are deceased). My mother is right handed.
My sister is slightly left-hand dominant, but elected to use her right hand, despite my parents working really hard to keep her using her left hand. She’s also severely dyslexic, and we think this may be part of why she has the hand confusion, lol. In reality, she’s pretty good with both hands, so ambidextrous. To my knowledge there were no traumas in relation to her birth, and as we were nearly identical as babies, her hair parted the same way as mine did (combed over to the right).
I’m right-hand dominant, though also ambidextrous as well, though my mother had a 53 hour labour with me. Long, I know!
My DH’s mother is left handed, his father is right handed. Both of their children are right handed, and by the sounds of it they were not easy deliveries– they both ended up being emergency c-sections after 20+ hours of labour.
My daughter is 13 months and showing very determinedly that she wants to use her right hand– she uses it for eating, picking things up, and writing with a perfect pencil grip already! And… her hair parts on the left, so “combs over” to the right. Technically labour with her was about 40 hours, but only had active contractions for 10, and she had huge decelerations in heart rate for about 2 of those hours… so I think she had a more traumatic birth than my sister and I, but not more so than DH or his sister.
Well, I’m right handed and I taught myself to be left handed because I didn’t want to ‘use up’ my right hand doing everything with it. I thought it was ridiculous to have one perfectly good arm sitting there being unproductive throughout the course of my life. So, now I am ambidextrous.
My mom is right handed and my dad we think was left handed (the old country school he went to as a child wouldn’t allow children to write with their left hand), he writes very poorly. They have 6 children and 3 of us are right handed and 3 are left, all normal deliveries, it would sure seem to be hereditary.
I am not left-handed, nor is anyone in my immediate family is. But I do part my hair on the right side!
Now my husband is left-handed and so is his twin sister. They were born pre-mature (2 1/2 months early). No body else in thier immediate family is left-handed though. So the trauma at birth theory holds up there.
I had to put “all of the children are right-handed, because our two biological children are both VERY right-handed (I had to get someone else to teach my oldest how to tie his shoes!). We have two adopted kids, though also, and though this wasn’t a stipulation (LOL!) they are both left-handed! So, the lefties still outnumber the righties!
Things like handedness are definitely not 100% genetic. Otherwise you wouldn’t have phenomena like mirror image twins – genetically identical twins that have some “mirror image” qualities. My husband is a mirror image twin. His hair swirl is opposite to his twin’s, they sucked opposite thumbs as babies, Adrian is right-handed while Lane is ambidextrous. But. . . your theory doesn’t exactly hold with them, as Adrian’s hair parts to the left, Lane’s to the right :-/.
My mom is left handed and my dad was up until he attended Kindergarten where they forced him to use his right hand (now he writes with his right hand but does everything else as a left hander would). Of the three of us “kids” two are right handed and one is left (the firstborn).
I was an 11-pounder and had damage to my shoulder at birth, but I am right-handed. (And my hair parts on the left side.)
my mom is left handed and my dad is ambidextrous, but mostly left. 7 out of the 9 children are right handed. Caleb is left and we don’t know about the 6wk Samuel yet
seems we turned out the opposite of y’all
My mom is left handed and my dad is right. I started out ambidextrous but learned to write mostly with my right hand due to a teacher who wouldn’t let me use my left hand. I play most sports left handed. My sister is right handed. We all have whorls on our right side. I read something about the direction the whorls spin determining handedness. My dad, sister, and I have right spinning whorls and my mom’s spins left. My sister’s husband is right handed the same as my sister and one of their boys(right spinning whorl). My other nephew is left handed with a left spinning whorl. My husband is right handed with a right whorl. Our first 4 children are right handed with right spinning whorls. Our 5th just turned 3 and seems to be pretty right handed although she has a left spinning whorl. All of those children have the whorls on their right sides. I’m really curious to see what hand my 5 month old decides to prefer. He has two whorls one on each side of his head, spinning in opposite directions.
Neither my husband nor I are left handed, but I was ambidextrous, finally dominating with the right, but still use both. My husband’s brother is left handed, and 50% of my children who write (2 are too small) are left handed. I do think there is some sort of hereditary factor in it all.
I have heard/read (don’t ask me to site a source) that there is a right-handed gene that can be missing. Many people may be missing the right-handed gene and still become right- or left-handed. So I think that would make a valid chance that left-handedness is hereditary. My grandfather was ambidextrous (he was not allowed to be left-handed in the early 20th century), and an aunt and an uncle (children of his) are also lefties. My husband’s father is left-handed, two (so far) of his grandchildren appear to be lefties.
My parents are both righ-handed. There 2nd born (no trauma, normal sized) baby is left handed for writing but does everything else right-handed.
I am right handed, but my husband is left-handed for writing only. Our first daughter was large for me and we had to use forceps. She has been left-handed from the first time she tried to put her paci back in her mouth. She also prefers to do sports left-handed. All our other children are righty. I tried not to influence them either way until I saw a preference. We homeschool too so no problems with teachers.
My husband and I are right-handed. Our daughter did have trouble breathing at birth (an extended NICU stay) and now seems to be left-handed. She does have a cow lick on the left and we part her hair on the left.
My oldest son has two cow licks, and we happen to part his hair on the left. My youngest son has one cow lick on the right and we part his hair on the right. Both are right-handed.
Baby boy due in April…remains to be seen!
I’m left handed, and an only child, but my parents were both right handed. My mum is fairly ambidextrous, and we think my dad was a thwarted left-hander – his writing was terrible. I have two whorls on my head! One at each side!
When I was studying language development in school, one of the studies in which I participated as a research assistant had to do with the hemispheric localization of different language functions in the brain, and whether those varied between left- and right-handed people. They definitely do, to a significant degree of statistical variation!
And handedness is usually genetic from before birth, not a result of environment. Supposedly extra exposure to testosterone in the womb can lead to left-handedness, but then a counterpoint is one specific kind of identical twinning (called mirror-image twins): one twin will be left-handed and one right-handed!
The whorls on the head do relate somewhat to handedness. It’s interesting that you brought that up; have you heard of AJ Klar’s 2004 study on men’s hair whorls? Likely it all comes down to how God designs our brains to function from the time we are first made!
both my husband and I are right handed and so is our oldest son. My youngest son who was born with small holes in both lungs is left handed. He spent his first 7 days on a ventalator. I’d never heard that theory before…interesting!
I was just watching a video last night (In The Womb: Multiples) that spoke of the theory that left-handed people are the survivors of mirror-image identical twinning. “Vanishing twin syndrome” happens a lot, they said, more often than first realized. I have no idea how true it all is, but it was certainly interesting to think about!
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/In_the_Womb_Multiples/70065823?trkid=226870
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_twin
I am left-handed (no birth trauma, 7 pound baby), but my husband is right-handed. So far only 1 of our 7 is left-handed (no birth trauma there either). I have a wierd double swirl, although I do part my hair usually on the right, and my lefty has the right swirl. The others all have double swirls or left swirls.
I did a lot of research back in high school for 2 science fair projects on handedness, and I remember one theory that the gene for left-handedness was neutral, while the one for right-handedness was dominant. In other words, if you have a right gene, you would be right-handed, but if you had 2 left genes, it could still go either way. I think handedness is so interesting! I’m always trying to get my kids to be left-handed, but so far that hasn’t worked at all, so I am firmly in the “born with it” camp!
OK, this is a little bit freaky. I just went and checked my left-handed son’s hair and he does have a right whorl. His right-handed siblings have a left one. What a great theory!!
Both my husband and I are right-handed but between us have 3 left-handed siblings. We also have a 1 year old baby who seemed to favour her left hand but now we aren’t sure. I just checked her head and she has a right whorl so now I am excited to see if your theory will prove correct for her.
Rachael in Australia
My parents were both left handed. My Mom was forced to use her right hand in school. She could write just as pretty with her left hand as her right hand. I have 2 brothers who are lefties and many of their children are lefties. The rest of us are all right handed.
I am the only lefty in my family and so far none of 7 children are left-handed. I’m still working on my 18 mo old since she still uses both of her hands.
Just one lefty is all I ask for, is that too much to ask?! lol
Lefthandedness is genetic, my daughter saw a pediatric neurologist after she had some brain damage from a vaccine (it attacked the part of the brain that controls speech, which also controls handedness). Anyways….he said that it was impossible for a person to be NATURALLY lefthanded unless she had a parent or grandparent that was lefthhanded UNLESS they had suffered brain damage in that part of the brain.
We have 3 lefties in our family (8 kids total). My husband and I are right handed.
One lefty is his son from another marriage who I think had an uneventful delivery.
One lefty is my son, but he’s adopted. Not great prenatal or anything, I’ll have to ask if any siblings are lefty.
The other lefty is our son together, nothing unusual in delivery (it was fast though 5cm to 10 in 30 minutes).
I am ambidextrous, dh rightie. Our 1st a boy, is a leftie. Our girls seem right handed, although my 3yo seems ambidextrous. She was my 10lbs blue baby
I’m a right-hair-parting lefty. Both my parents are left-handed. My sister and brother are right handed. Hubby is right handed. 2 of the 4 are right handed, 1 is definitely left, and the 4th is too soon to tell.
Sorry to disagree, but I really think hand preference fits right in with natural personality traits along with love languages, Briggs-Meyer personality, natural talents, etc. My parents were both lefties and most if not all their 8 births had some trauma, at least 3 could have been fatal. One brother (admittedly the most traumatic birth) is the only left-hander. My husband and I are both right-handers, along with my older daughter, but my younger daughter (whose birth was much easier) seems to prefer her left hand–even though I allow either but somewhat encourage right handedness because I’ve seen the challenges a lefty faces in our world which a righty doesn’t have to deal with. And I part my hair on the right BTW.
My son (4) is completely ambidextrous. He switches hands sometimes when he switches crayons. He had a very traumatic birth. 9 weeks premature, born via c-section after PPROM at 23 weeks.
My daughter is Bethany’s age so we’re not sure about her yet. She was also born via c-section.
Oh, I should add that I’m right handed, but my dad is ambidextrous and my uncle is a lefty. Hubby is right handed as well.
I am left handed, my husband is right handed, and both of our children are left handed. Both of us have other relatives who are left handed. I think left handedness may be hereditary.
Hi Kim,
Well, I went straight to my left-handed son, because he does part his hair on the right side. Neither my husband nor I are LH, but my father-in-law, and two of my husband’s siblings are, including the 1st-born. I have cousins and their mother, my aunt, who are LH. My son says it is hereditary, based on his research, and he also believes that it is more common in 1st-borns. (All his friends who are LH are also 1st-borns. Also, 5 presidents were LH.) In the book, “The Natural Superiority of The Left-Hander” by James T. de Kay, it states, “We know that if both parents are left-handed, 50% of the kids will be left-handed too. But if both parents are right-handed, only 2% of the kids will be left-handed. Another indication that left-handedness is genetic comes from Scotland’s Kerr family. For centuries the Kerrs have been famous for the large number of left-handers they produce. They even gave their castles left-handed staircases so they’d be easy to defend.”
Since both my husband and I have family who are LH, this is an interesting topic for us:)
Wendy
- My hair parts on the right and I am VERY right handed (can’t even pour a jug with my left hand).
– My sister was born after an under-half-an-hour labour, with the cord around her neck (7lb 12), and is right handed for writing, but left dominant for everything else, including anything using her feet – ie playing soccer or whatever.
– My husband has no apparent part and is right handed.
– My 5yr old has no apparent part and is right handed.
– My 10month old has a very peculiar swirl in her hair on the right, parts on the left, and due to her age is showing no hand preference yet.
This is an interesting poll. I’m left-handed, and my mother-in-law was too, so I thought some of my kids might be. My second son does hit a ball like a lefty, but other than that he’s right-handed. However, when we had identical twins, (our 5th and 6th children) they turned out to be mirror twins, so one is left-handed and one is right-handed. I’ve always parted their hair on the left, (I do the same with my own) but since they’ve been doing their own hair more and more, I’ve noticed the lefty parts it to the left and the righty to the right. It was their little hair whorl in the back of the head that helped us tell them apart when they were babies. The one who turned out to be left-handed, his is slightly to the left, and the other is slightly to the right. I guess mine are the opposite of your theory on this.
Btw, my parents are both right-handed. My brother is adopted, so I was their only birth child.
Blessings,
Marcia
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this topic!!
and completely left hand dominant in sports, parts to the left. Being a lefty has been a benefit to her playing violin! She is also the only math whiz in the family so far.
Only one of our five children is left handed. Hubby and I are both right handed, though I am slightly ambidextrous. Hubby has no part but a double sworl. I part to the right.
- Oldest child is right handed parts on the right. She is gifted musically and athletically. (the only gifted child in the fam)
-2nd born, traumatic birth, had to be resuscitated but had no brain injury, is right handed parts to the left. Completely and utterly uncoordinated.
-3rd born no trauma, LEFT handed
-4th born, no trauma, right handed, no part but may be left if hair ever grew out, double sworl ONLY BOY!
-5th born, traumatic pregnancy and birth, right handed and parts to the left.
Also #3 & 5 also part in the middle almost as often as to the side, naturally. Odd..
My mother is right handed, my father is left handed (they made him switch to his right in south Louisiana, where left-handed-ness was a sign of being evil, or one of those nonsensical things, so he also has the terrible handwriting spoken of in other comments). I am left handed.
I think the thing about the Scottish Kerr’s is AWESOME!
Interesting topic. Hubs and I are both right, but we both have leftie maternal grandfathers. My mother says she’d have been left if allowed. My stepson is left; his labor lasted 26 hours and (I think) ended in forceps delivery. Of my 7, one showed strong left tendencies, but I think he’s balancing out now. His hair crowns on the right side of his head; my other 2 boys are dead center.
I always thought it was genetic.
Hubby & I are both right handed. 3 of my 5 kiddos are left handed. I have noticed that all my lefties have the same kind of personality
I am left-handed and the only one in my family who is, extended family as far back as you want to go included. I have six children who have been homeschooled their entire lives. All six are right-handed. The only other left-hander I know is my FIL, who is also the only one in his family.
I forgot to mention that I only eat and write left-handed. With everything else I am right-handed.
I am right handed, and my husband is left handed. All five of our children are left handed. There is an uncle on his side who is left handed, and my paternal grandmother is left handed. I think it is a genetically recessive gene.
Hubby and I are both righties and our oldest of 4 (so far) is our only lefty. DS2′s is the only hair that parts on the right (drives my husband crazy
)
A friend has 4 children, one from her husband’s first marriage, and all 4 are lefties. She and her husband (and his first wife, afaik) are all righties. I have never looked at her boys’ parts though so I can’t say about that.
DS1 was thought to have aspirated some meconium and was under an oxygen tent for a while after his birth. I pushed for over 2 hours with him, even though he was our smallest baby (8 lb 4 oz). Our next 2 were delivered very quickly and our 4th didn’t have any issues with her breathing.
My brother was born 6 weeks premature after mom’s placenta abrupted and she hemmorhaged. He is a righty. My mom is probably a thwarted lefty. She is very good with both hands.
We have talked about this issue many times in our family, although never the hair-whorling or birth trauma aspects. That will add a new dimension the next time it comes up
Oh, I also have 2 first cousins who are lefties. That’s the extent of it in my family. DH doesn’t have any as far as he knows.
Both my parents are left handed. All three of us kids are right. I always wanted to be left. I do many things left handed (or as my husbands says -wrong–he’s a righty) I can’t peel potatoes w/ a potatoe peeler. My mom’s was a left handed one–or just sharp on that side????? I couldn’t teach our son to tie shoes cuz “i did it wrong” My daughter (a righty) does some stuff lefty–not by my suggestion. She just does. When I was a baby, my mom was in the store. I dropped my toy. My mom handed it tome and I took it with my left hand. Some lady came up and repremanded my mom-”You’ll make her left handed. that’s just horrible!” My mom replied “I’m left handed.”
How interesting…. you got a lot of comments on this one! LOL
I had never heard on the theory about the traumatic birth. My 2nd child, a boy, had the most traumatic birth. although he was only 8lbs 9 ounces, because of the pitocin they gave me he had half his arm out of my cervix when I was only dilated to 3cm. We did not want a C section so the doctor pushed it back in, but they kept turning me from side to side because the pitocin was causing some distress on him because of the hard contractions. He was born fine, but it was traumatic and that was it for me as far as hospital births.
My 3rd child was 10lbs born at home and it was the easiest, fastest and with the least amount of pain of all 3 births. No drugs, no interventions, no problems.
Anyway, back to the subject, my 2nd child is the only one who is a Lefty. He does use his right hand for playing ball and using the mouse on the computer. But he writes with his left. I would say he will be ambidextrous like his father. I use my right hand as do my other 2 children.
I had read that being a lefty made you a more artistic, emotional, sensitive person. I can tell my son and my husband are.
Anyway, interesting post.
It seems to me that hair whorls are all smack in the middle of people’s heads. But they either whorl clockwise or counter clockwise. My daughter has double hair whorls spaced evenly about an inch and a half apart from the center back of her head. Double whorls are supposed to be very rare. She’s right handed and has learning problems.
I’m loving all the input, but I have to admit I was disappointed at the low level of participation in the poll – until I realized that many of you probably don’t have or know a family in which both parents are left-handed.
It also seems that the answers to *that* poll would be more meaningful if we could compare the results with families in which both parents were not left-handed.
I’ve added 2 new polls – I hope you all will take a few minutes to answer for your own household and for others if you know the answer for them!
Both myself and hubby are right-handed but 5 of our 10 children are lefties. I’ve always thought 50% was a lot. Of my 2 over 10 pounders, 1 is righ-handed, the other left. The hardest birth was from my righ-handed dd. Interesting observations.
My left-handed grandmother has 5 children and 11 grandchildren, and yet she remains the only left-handed person in our immediate family (her two brothers and her parents were all right-handed, although I don’t know about her parents’ siblings).
What I’m interested in is the dominance variation in other parts of the body. As I said, all of my family members save my grandma are right handed, yet I am the only one of us righties with a left-eye and left-leg dominance (I take photographs with my left eye, and I do cartwheels opposite of everyone else.) I’ve always wondered what that meant.
To add to my previous comment, I checked with the 3 moms of my son’s birth siblings (all adopted, there are 3 more siblings that we’ve lost touch with), anyway, that’s 7 of my sons birth siblings (all same birthmother) and all of them are righties. So so far only my son is lefty.
I heard once that it’s very rare to have more than one lefty in the same immediate family but these comments really prove otherwise!
This is very interesting to me. I have 6 children, one of which was a preemie. The preemie, although, is right handed. Four of my children were over the 9lb mark. My leftie is #6 and he was 10lbs even.
I forgot to mention that my husband and I are both right handed. I do have some left handed cousins, though.
Handedness is hereditary although your body can adapt to use the other hand (or both hands) as necessary.
For young children – which ever hand they use a spoon with is the hand they will write with. Handedness is established by 3yo but as an adult you can learn to use the other hand as necessary.
I didn’t read all of the comments so this might have already been said.
But, I think if you have 2 left-handed parents, you’re going to have a few left-handed kiddos as well. If you’re teaching a child to write or use a dominant hand, they might imitate you and use the left hand because you did. Ya know?
My mom is right handed and I am right handed. My dad is left handed and my sister is left handed.
Both of my parents are right-handed. I’m the only leftie out of 4 kids. Though I’m not a true leftie, I only write and eat left-handed. I play guitar right-handed, and everything else I’m ambidextrous. My part is slightly closer to the right side…
I was 6 pounds 13 ounces at birth, 4 days early… no trauma that I’m aware of.
Interesting! I have identical twins – the one born first, who had to be rushed to the NICU for not breathing, is left-handed. The other is right-handed. I’m right-handed, but left-eyed and my hair parts on the right.
Oh, and I never mentioned that while I am right handed, I iron and sweep left handed. Don’t ask me what that’s about. I might just be weird.
My mother is left handed and my father is right handed.
My sister is right handed and my brother is left-handed primarily but is pretty ambidextrous. I am right handed but am somewhat ambidextrous (and I also part my hair on the right side).
Any birth trauma would have only been with my sister and she’s right handed and not ambidextrous at all (the first child, my mom ended up having an emergency C-section which was entirely preventable….but I digress).
My parents are both right handed and all of us six kids are too, except my sister, #4, no birth trama. My husband and I are both righ handed and so far our (young) children seem to favor that hand. However, the baby sucks her left thumb so I’m wondering if that will turn into left handedness. Her heart rate went down to 60 after she was born and she had to have a couple puffs of oxygen before she started breathing regularly. She also seemed quite tramatized. Her hair swirls the same way as the others, though. Interesting! I love theorizing like this!
My neighbor is left handed. His first wife is also left handed. Their oldest son is left handed, and his second wife is left handed. THis second son uses his left hand to write, but after some testing doctors figured out that he is actually right handed. He uses his left hand because he has been surrounded by it his entire life and learned to mimic what they were doing. He uses his left hand for writing and playing instruments and very deliberate actions, but for small things like waving and reaching for something he favors his right hand. I find the dynamic to be very interesting.
I come from an artsy background. The right side of the brain is usually more dominant is this area. This made it so that I’m pretty sure that I know more left handed people than right handed which of courses is odd.
My husband and I are both right handed. We have 3 children and the two oldest are definitely left handed. The youngest is 15 months and seems as though she’ll be left handed as well! There has been no significant birth trauma, etc. However, they were all three c-sections and the oldest weighed in at 10 lbs.
My husband and I are both lefties. I was premature 6 weeks, and DR dropped hubby onto the table when he was born hard enough to seriously bruise his head. Damage could have caused both.
We have 8 kids. ALL are righties. No difficult births.
On a side note, and VERY interesting… I know 7 people born on February 13th. Ranging in age from 80′s to teens. SIX of them are lefties. 3 are female, 3 male. Go figure.
All five of my children and I have whorls, and natural parts, on the rights sides of our heads, but we are all right handed. One of my children has whorls on both sides. I didn’t even know most people had them on the left side.
I just wanted to add that my grandmother and aunt were left handed,and so my mom who is right handed does much housework left handed – such as ironing, because she learned from watching her mom and sister. I also iron left handed…so it has made it to another generation!
I was just talking about this the other day with a friend and then I came upon your post. How funny.
I’m left handed and of my whole family I only have a cousin who is left handed also.
Out of my 4 kids, 2 of them are left handed so far. I find this very fascinating
I really think that they’re just born that way. I have had NO influence on my 2 daughters being left handed and they are very strongly left! My first born is right handed though. None of them were hard deliveries. My cowlick is on the left (and I’m a lefty) and I part my hair on the left. The only things I do right handed are batting and golfing.
Very interesting! My husband and I are both left-handed, but all 4 of our children are right handed! Our oldest son had a very difficult birth/forceps, but is not left-handed. My mother is left handed. Husband’s parents were both right-handed, but he doesn’t know about grandparents.
I haven’t read through the comments, so this might have been mentioned.
My husband (and infant son!) has a double whorl on his head. The left (his left) goes clockwise and the right goes counter clockwise.
And the coolest part?! He’s ambidextrous.
I am very right handed. My birth was somewhat tramatic. My Dad says that he was left and right handed until he went to school where the teacher forced him to learn to write right handed, he feels he would have been a lefty. My mom was a strong righty.
I do not know what hand her Dad used, but her mom is right handed. My Dad’s parents were both right handed.
My husband is right handed. He has one brother who is a strong lefty, and the other does some things lefty but writes right handed. Both of his parents are righties.
We have 4 kids. 3 months is way to soon to tell. The 4 year old is a strong righty. My 12 year old is both, but ended up writing right handed, she struggles in school and did have a difficult birth. My nearly 15 year old is a strong righty.
My best friend is a righty, her husband is a lefty and so is his mother. They have 4 kids. The 12 year old is a strong righty. The 7 year old is a righty but has learning problems and so switches back and forth as she gets tired. She always starts right handed and uses it more than 60% of the time in activities. The 4 year old was a strong lefty, but this summer he switched over and began using his right hand. I’m not sure why – he had a hard birth at nearly 10 lbs. The 2 year old usually uses her right hand.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years – lefties tend to be able to think outside the box, more creative, and more likely to be artistic or picture a 2d item in 3d. They make good artists, chefs, musicians, authors, and engineers.
Righties tend to be more concrete thinkers, They memorize well, like orderliness more (though not always good at organization), like routines and schedules, tend to do good at school.
My sister has 1 lefty. Her husband is a lefty and she is a righty. Their other 2 sons are righties. The lefty is the creative one that struggles to read, but knows tons about bugs and is fearless.