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Comment by JR1427 | Hacker News Reader

I just looked back at some photos to confirm that I cradled our daughter right-sided.

I'm right-handed, but do some other things left-handed too, like holding the knife in my left hand while eating. This has always seems much more logical to me, since the knife is a secondary tool. I hold the fork in my right hand regardless of if my left is holding a knife or not.

I also notice that when raking leaves, or mopping a floor, I can never make up my mind which handedness feels more comfortable, and just switch between them.

But I was very handed when it came to holding our daughter. Always her head on my right side, whether cradling or with her head on my shoulder. I didn't have a problem doing simple tasks with my free non-dominant (left) hand, but cradling a baby seemed too important a task to give to it!

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> the knife is a secondary tool

It is secondary overall, but during the act of cutting itself it is the primary tool — the fork merely holds the food in place. Thus the differing "European" and American etiquette standards for utensil-holding (maintain fork in left hand vs. switch when cutting).

("European" in quotes because it is not ubiquitous across Europe [1])

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_utensil_etiquette

What is most interesting to me is that we even have these arbitrary standards for social class judgement.

When I was in Europe I made myself surprisingly uncomfortable trying to emulate the utensil etiquette of the people I was eating with. It was doubly painful when we ate pizza, which I wanted to pick up, fold in half and eat with my hands.

My read on the utensil thing is that basically keeping the fork in the left hand feels more "rushed" and therefore less delicate/dignified. I'm from the UK and my wife is American, and when I'm over there I do notice that if I forget to adapt my technique I sort of feel a little undignified in the way I eat, comparatively. It's interesting.

Maybe doing the harder thing feels more dignified, because for me it's the other way.

> I hold the fork in my right hand regardless of if my left is holding a knife or not.

Same, unless I'm cutting roast beef with a kitchen knife where the knife is the primary utensil.

I think I could easily do the cutting with fork-left/knife-right, but as soon as I imagine the actual placing food into my mouth, I want my right hand.

For fun, try switching the left and right mouse button actions, just give it a whirl, bizarrely I just took to it like water despite decades of muscle memory?!

It is because you are using your dominant hand. Try switching the mouse with your non-dominant hand.

I'm from that generation where they were just getting over trying to make left handing kids right handed. Now that I'm older I find myself doing all kind of weird things...

For example as a kid I had to use left handed scissors or I couldn't cut things, now I use right handed scissors in either hand. I switch my mouse to my right and left hand sometimes without thinking about it. My brain just transparently maps the right click to my left hand index finger. I throw with my right arm and shoot right handed, but when it comes to tool use I seem to be ambidextrous. This said, I can only write with my left hand.

> I also notice that when raking leaves, or mopping a floor, I can never make up my mind which handedness feels more comfortable, and just switch between them.

I feel similarly. I think with a lot of these tasks, the stakes are low and the dominant hand can have an adequate effect in either placement.

On the other hand (ahem), I do not feel this way about shoveling snow. I have to use my dominant hand on the far end of a snow shovel because I can generate more power with more control that way (despite my right arm having less muscle -- per my other comment about my experience agreeing with this article, I hold my child with my left arm and now have more muscle on my left arm as a result). I think the aspect of being able to control the power feels more important because shoveling snow feels like, if I screw up the motion, I can potentially cause injury to myself.

I play hockey left handed, but do everything else right handed. Has always felt natural to me, I can't remember ever doing differently.

I'm a left handed kid that taught myself to use a fork with my left hand. But then my right handed sister taught me to cut with a knife also using my left hand, so now as an adult I keep on switching hands.

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