Left Handed Scissors

Think back to when you first learned to use scissors: it took a while!

I find that left-handed kids who have learned to use right-handed scissors efficiently have trouble with left-handed ones because they are used to compensating for the blades being 'wrong' for them, and find it hard to stop, but the kids who have rarely used scissors find them no trouble because they never picked up the compensating habit.

Dear Joann,

I'm left-handed, and I "treated" myself to a pair many years ago. I found that I cut everything wrong by the width of the blades, because If you watch your behavior, you watch the other side of the blades when cutting with regular scissors. I went back to "regular" ones. And if you think about it, lefties are probably pretty creative, and use regular tools of all sorts without even thinking about it. I don't believe in using left-handed tools because the other side of the world thinks we have a disability!

Teri

I never understood when people would ask me "How in the world can you use those scissors (ones for righties), aren't they backwards for you?" I would look at them like they were crazy thinking I was using them like everyone else. That must be it, using regular tools without ever thinking about how they weren't "meant" for me.

Am also a leftie, in a 'rightie' world. When working at our Joann's, I tried the leftie scissors, went back to the righties that I used all my life. Same thing with playing softball. I guess we make do, as there was no left-handed things for us growing up 50 years ago. This is truly a right-handed world. How about trying to write in notebooks, either spiral or 3 ringed, or wanting to write in a greeting card, only to smear the ink? Diane in Ks.

Dear Dianne,

I don't have trouble with writing in notebooks; when I first learned script as a child, I wrote with my hand straight up, instead off curved over the top of the writing. My teacher kept yelling at me that my writing was not Palmer style--too round and not slanted to the right. But it was clear and neat--more important to me than Palmer. I still write that way. I never got good marks for penmanship, but it's legible.

Teri

How on earth could a teacher expect a left hander's handwriting to slope to the right?

I'm right handed, and my brother left handed. Our writing is similar as we were taught at the same school - but if you compare the two, you'll notice that the slopes are about 90degrees apart! I slope at about 45deg to the right, and he slopes 45deg to the left.....

Sarah

I'm a lefty and so are my three children and none of us have a problem with right-handed tools of any kind. I had the advantage of being able to run the calculator with my right hand and writing with my left - that is when I was still working in accounting. (Retired, now, for a number of years.) I, too, have used right-handed scissors since my mother was right handed and those were the only scissors around when I was a child - about 60 yrs ago. Also I might add that neither my brother, who is also left-handed, and none of my left handed children write with their hand bent around the top of the paper. We all write like right-handers except the paper is slanted to our left, under our left arm, as we write from the top. And, yes, spirals and notebooks have been a little bit of a problem but not all that bad. We all survived it quite well. Marlys in Indiana

I must *really* be odd! I write with my pen straight up, no curving hook to my hand. Even to me that looks painful to write like that, also my writing is slanted to the right. Also, when I write on a sheet of paper it is laying on the desk at about a 45 degree angle facing right. I used to get good marks for great penmanship in elementary school. But now it just looks like hen scratching to me.