Left-handedness has sometimes been treated as pathological. Cesare Lombroso, the infamous 19th-century physician who identified various facial (and racial) features with criminal traits, also saw left-handedness as evidence of pathology, primitivism, savagery and criminality. And I was brought up with the story that a generation ago, in the bad old days (and in the old country), foolish unenlightened people tried to force left-handed children to convert and use their right hands. My father said that my uncle, his older brother, had had his left hand tied behind his back as a child.
When I was a child my parents (in the “old country” of Alabama) made sure I wrote with my right hand because they thought it would make life easier for me in school. But they never stopped me when I ate, combed my hair, brushed my teeth, shot pool, and fired arrows from bows, all left-handed. When I broke my right arm in high school I spent the next six weeks writing left-handed without too much difficulty. But then, I have always hit baseballs and shot basketballs right-handed (though I use my left hand a lot on the basketball court). If I have any delicate and precise work to do with my hands — say, repairing my eyeglasses — I always use my left hand. My right hand feel stronger to me, my left one more precise.
I am not ambidextrous if that means being able to perform any given task equally well with my either hand. But I am ambidextrous if that means using different hands for different tasks.
