Comment by metaphor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by metaphor | Hacker News Reader

The paper doesn't appear to consider impact of the child's weight, whether the task at hand demands strength/endurance v. dexterity/control, and the related natural strength bias between men and women.

The wife is right-handed whereas I'm left-handed, and we both currently prefer cradling with our non-dominant arm; my prevailing driver is head control (while standing), whereas hers is both head control and dexterity during feeding (while sitting).

Despite our daughter being just a month old and 9 lbs, the wife is already remarking that she's starting to get "heavy". As our child puts on more weight, I'm expecting to see the wife use her dominant arm more to cradle in certain scenarios, predicated by the baby's growth outpacing her arm strength buildup. In contrast, my non-dominant arm is notionally several times stronger than her dominant, so I suspect there will much fewer reasons for me to pivot as the child grows.

As an aside, I truly do find it strange that child weight doesn't appear to be taken into any meaningful consideration. I understand that an innovation out of Europe which spread like wildfire in the US are car seats with rotating carriages (delayed adoption speculatively due to safety regulations). Many years ago, a close friend was first exposed to them when renting a car while on vacation in Iceland; he claimed that the UX of moving his daughter in and out was such a "game changer" that he immediately ordered one upon return, and it was one of the first things he recommended when I was soliciting wisdom in the months before my child was born.

Lefty here as well, funny thing about my experience with two kids (now teenagers) was that I could get switch arms with no loss of functionality holding a baby. I credit this to living in right hand world. Most lefties I know are at least somewhat ambidextrous simply by fact of most things being built for, taught and learned from right-handed people.

I don't know about ambidextrous (being able to perform a skill with either hand), but all the lefties I know are cross-dominant to some variety.

For instance, I hold a pen, fork, soldering iron etc. with my left, but use a mouse with my right.

You are correct and I have been using ambidextrous wrong for 40+ years. Never too old to learn something and I did today, so thank you!

Cross-Dominant

1. Mixed preference: A cross-dominant individual favors different hands, eyes, or feet for different tasks. For example, they might write with their right hand, eat with their left hand, and kick a ball with their left foot.

2. No clear dominant side: They lack a single, strongly dominant side of the body, leading to a mixed pattern across various activities.

3. Potential Challenges: Cross-dominance can sometimes be associated with minor difficulties in coordination or activities requiring single-sided precision.

Ambidextrous

1. Equal Skill: A truly ambidextrous individual can perform tasks with equal skill and control using either hand. This includes tasks that require fine motor skills, like writing.

2. Rarity: True ambidexterity is relatively uncommon.

3. Developed Skill: Often, ambidexterity is a learned ability and not an innate characteristic. People can train themselves to use both hands with near-equal proficiency.

In Summary:

Cross-dominant: Mixed hand/eye/foot preference for different tasks. Ambidextrous: Equal proficiency in using both hands for almost any task

Cross-dominant seems to imply a preference, whereas your original comment leaned more towards being forced to learn some skill or activity with your offhand.

I think learning to cut with scissors is one of the main ones for little kids, you can try to cut left handed with a "normal" right-handed pair of scissors, but seeing where you're cutting is just harder.

I am right handed but I use phone almost exclusively by left hand (when I use only one hand to hold and operate phone, like reading HN now), I am using right hand only when two-thumb-writing (like now)

When the child gets older and bigger, the thing that helps is not having to hold the head. So they get bigger, but you can put the kid on your hip and just hold them around the torso with your arm. So while they do get bigger, some of the issues goes away as they aren't as fragile.

As an aside, I noticed you refer to your wife as "the wife" rather than "my wife". I've noticed others talk like that as well. I wonder what the origins of that are.

It’s originally British and was slightly derogatory there: https://amp.theguardian.com/theguardian/2013/oct/01/guardian...

When used in American English I think the derogatory aspect is no longer present but that’s my opinion

Partly conditional avoidance of referring to her in a possessive manner, but mostly just subtle figure of speech when attempting to convey myself as being in a position of otherwise harmless (and often convenient) deference, perhaps influenced by an upbringing in a culture with strong matriarchal values.

If the baby is anything like a cat they will have their own side bias to account for too

A baby sling helps.

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