credit: RBerteig

Why are people-left handed?

There are several prominent theories on how people end up left-handed.

Some data:

• 1 in 10 people world-wide is a lefty
• the exact percentage of lefties varies over time and around the world
• left-handed parents are more likely to have lefty kids 13% – 26% depending on gender and handedness of spouse
• men are more likely to be left-handed
• the more lefties you know the more likely you are to be murdered

Theory #1.) They are born that way.

People are left-handed because of in utero introduction of testosterone and the presence of the LRRTM1 gene that increases left right asymmetry in brain development. Many studies indicate that motor functions are generally controlled in the opposite side of the brain from the outside of the body. So, a greater development on the right-hemisphere of the brain is supposed to result in a dominant left hand.

Theory #2.) It is taught

When babies are born they are not lateralized for handedness, so they may just start using their left hand and have enough success that they just stick with it. But, supposedly, many of these people will suffer from poor handwriting and fine motor skills because their brains are wired against their behavior. Some people think that this kind of cross-functioning may be a contributor to stuttering, as the brain flits from one hemisphere to the other while formating  language.

Theory #3.) There is something wrong with them.

It is alleged that the occurrence of left-handedness in developmentally disabled and severely developmentally disabled are 2x – 3x worldwide rate. There is also allegedly a slightly higher percentage of lefties that have schizophrenia and other psychological disorders. This theory holds that damage to the left-hemisphere of the brain will result in the brain compensating by moving the processes to the right side.

Theory #4.) The devil.

Seriously, some people think the devil makes you left-handed.

Theory #5.) It is a matter of degrees.

The truth of the mater is that handedness is not actually binary. We usually indicate handedness by writing, but a large proportion of people perform a range of tasks with their non-dominant hand, and lateralization is independent across the body meaning the dominant hand, foot, eye and ear can all be different. Even though true ambidexterity is rare many people can sufficiently carry on daily activities with either hand.

So, being left-handed is like being gay;  it is either nature, nurture, environmental, the devil, or a pointless distinction.

credit: ld_germain

On my professional blog I wrote about new mothers who are angry about Motrin and Facebook. Motrin got in trouble for pointing out the rising popularity of wearing babies like fleshy drooling bling. And Facebook got in trouble for pointing out that breastfeeding involves breasts. I neither wear babies for fashion nor their sustenance, so it is all very amusing for me.

Chief among those amusements was learning of the Baby Bjorn. It turns out that Baby Bjorn is not a children’s album by Peter Bjorn & John, but it should be, it is instead a baby wearing device that is meant to be both comfortable, ergonomic, and ( I dare say) fashionable. Second on the list was todays question:

Why are mothers so angry about things that involve their kids?

I know that some people have drunk the kool-aid and believe that it is a protective instinct that is ingrained in the very fiber of a womans being. Alternate views hold that the months of sharing internal systems cause a spiritual bond. But, the truth is something far cruder.

OVER COMPENSATION

Yes that is right! Mother’s are over compensating for the following things:

1. The loss of their body for 9 – 900 months
2. Disruption of their other relationships
3. Fear that they will fail as mothers
4. An overwhelming desire to eat their baby

These women sub-consciously believe that by channeling all of their rage and depression over the above issues into blind lashing out at anyone that questions their parenting choices, or implies they have ulterior motives, will absolve them of their feelings.

Normally women gain between 25 and 35 pounds during the incubation of their spawn. Assuming that a woman is 5’3″ (63in) and healthy she is between 110 and 140 pounds, so a baby may make her grow over 30%. Can you imagine? That a pretty big change, and only 8 pounds of that is actually the baby.

• Placenta 2-3 pounds
• Amniotic fluid 2-3 pounds
• Breast tissue 2-3 pounds
• Blood supply 4 pounds
• Fat stores for breastfeeding 5-9 pounds
• Uterus increase 2-5 pounds

My mind reels at the thought of 4 pounds of blood; that is like a horror movie. Inside of every woman is a horror show of fluids and tissues fueling a postpartum powder-keg.

Not only does all this rearranging or the body make it difficult for women to go back to their normal ways they also have to deal with other people not being nearly as heart-warmed by the new meat-bags penchant for projectile vomiting. So, after 9 months of not having fun because you are trying to birth a health baby your healthy baby makes it difficult for you to hangout with your friends, or be intimate with your partner, or spend a nice night out with out worrying. And for what? It is going to cost you like a million dollars to raise, educate and feed it. It is going to get to do all kinds of fun things you can’t because you want to be a good parent and in the end I’m just going to put you in a nursing home.

Finally, and most telling, is every woman’s secret desire to consume their baby.

According to Donna Barr, author of Stintz and The Desert Peach, “A woman is like 14 times more likely to eat a properly prepared baby. That is why I could never have a baby — I have too many skillets” When I heard this I really wanted to respond with something funny, but when presented with such a radiant lucent insight into the dilemma of womanhood I could not bring myself to say much. In my informal studies I have found that while most women find the thought of infantacide abohrant many of them are open to infants as side-dishes — if properly prepared.

Clearly this is the dark secret mothers are covering up. I guess I understand that they want to get their friends and figure back by literally stuffing the offending creature back in them; re-processing their child back into the youth and vigor of their former days. But, it simply doesn’t work that way.

credit: pfv.

This question just floats around: Who is your daddy?

Last month we had a vote on adoption, on gay marriage, and an interview with the re-pregnant man. Then on Saturday night one of my friends talked about the difference between her birth-father and her dad (it is important to note she is not adopted). Put yourself in the shoes of a child. This should be easy; you used to be one. Is there a difference a dad and a father?

Think about who your father is/was: was he around, alive, supportive, loving? Was he who you thought he was? Chances are the man you call dad had some competition, probably the same for your mom. Between death, divorce, and poor-parenting there are an increasing number of Americans who describe someone as “just a sperm/egg donor.” Meaning, roughly, they gave me life – not love. Kids will instinctively find people to raise them. Because kids want protection and love, and there are adults that feel driven to provide for them.

But, who are these people? Aunts, Uncles, Foster/Step/Grand/Adoptive-parents; the names don’t matter, the only thing that does matter is that they provide some degree of safety. Well-adjusted adults come from well-loved children, those that can find the support they need to thrive.

Two-Moms (but not in gay way)

Two moms, two dads, and half-a-bajillion relatives; this is the joy of quote-unquote blended families. You have birth parents and you have their spouses and a mix of brothers and sisters and grandparents on-and-on; the post-nuclear family offers up a grab bag of potential mentors for a child. You can’t really tell in advance who is going to be most important in a child’s life. Kids need love. Love makes a family, regardless of blood.

So, today I opened the Stranger and read an article that ponders the subject of interracial adoption, Black Kids in White Houses: on race, silence, and the changing American family. Jen Graves makes it sound like there is quite a bit of pent-up emotion on this issue, mainly from the adoptees.

What is it like growing up in a multi-racial household? Let me tell you. For me it was normal. But, so is growing up in a single-parent household, I did that for a while. For you those things might be strange. For me living in a single race household would be strange, I’ve never done that. There are many problems with America’s image of family, most of them are the result of convenient lies. We never really had nuclear families, as a nation, race matters, sex matters, timing matters, and age matters.

The sad truth is that most parents come into parenting from the wrong angle. Having a child is not god’s way of teaching you to be a better person. That baby doesn’t owe you anything. When you take responsibility for the life of a child you have to dedicate your being toward their growth. Jen Graves has two passages that together make a strong point:

In my fantasy, I hadn’t considered how exactly I would protect my child. The child was a means to an end, a healing agent: Want to rid your parents of their overt racism? Give them black grandchildren and defy them not to love them! Need to atone for your own covert racism? Adopt a black child and let him teach you!

“What I’d ask parents is, are you willing to be the uncomfortable one?” Goller-Sojourner says. This is how he’d question a prospective parent if he were a social worker. “Because somebody’s gonna be uncomfortable, and it seems the burden is on you. You have to be the uncomfortable one.”

If you want kids you need to be prepared to be uncomfortable. You have to honestly explain sex, race, drugs, and all the mistakes you make that they ever find out about. Seriously, if you don’t provide the support your child needs they will find an approximation of what they need somewhere, even if it comes with unseen strings.

Growing up is not a pleasant experience. The racial dissonance that occurs between your home and what the society expects of you is not a monopolized by interracial families. Questions of sexuality and gender are not the monopoly of the queer. As a parent you are not going to be able to answer all of the questions that kids need to ask, but you do have the resources to swallow your pride and help your children find what they need in a safe way.

As adults we need to take responsibility for out situations and in some degree accept that different doesn’t mean better or worse. It just means different. I have been raised split between my mother’s home where everything was white and my dad’s home where we were a complicated tangle of multi-racial. I am left with some strange experiences. Ranging from polite inquiries if I am adopted to accusations that my parents are retarded for giving me a Spanish name. How do you discuss being called nigger with a white mother and a dad who doesn’t admit that he is black? That was a difficult, short, and confusing moment in my life.

Growing up between cultures is not nearly as simplistic as most people talk about it is not like being one thing raised by another. It is not sheep raising lions; it is not cats raising dogs. It is people raising people. However, it is confusing.

I will leave you with a joke that approximates my feelings about growing up multi-racial.

A baboon walks up to a zebra and asks, “Are you a white horse with black stripes, or a black horse with white stripes?”
After a moment the zebra replied: “No. I’m a fucking zebra.”

It is difficult for me to adequately express the way I feel tonight. It is, of course, a monumental occasion for the United States. But, I don’t know if there is a clear way to express what it means to me as an individual. So, I will share something that wasn’t really meant for this location — I wrote this to my sister.

I started this life like most people do, as a baby. I think that was my first mistake. How do you really excel in any way when you are chained to mundanity? If I could have sprung into this world at the age of 10 I think it would have been better, for me at least.

I was a born at a time when babies like us weren’t in style. Certainly I was not the first of my kind. There is a long history of brown babies in the Americas. My own sister, you, pre-dated me by more than a decade; Tomas Jefferson had a child like us. But, culturally people like me, and you don’t exist; we all have improbable stories. Stories that have no real reason to exist, except, that no one wanted to admit that we existed. “We,” no one wanted to admit that multi-racial was possible. As if we were mules. Something that came and went in a single life: not an ostracized group that came and intermingled and passed and re-mingled again.

That silly assumption that I must be adopted, because my family was a different color 50% of the time. In part I am very invested into story. Because that is what my life is, a story. Not a memoir. My life is a story, like parents tell their children, a fable. We are the descendants of a man who spun a tale to support the life he wanted. He was given this freedom because his father did the same. I have been told the story of our past by our dad; by my mother; by our grandfather; I have no reason to believe any of them. I have no reason to trust any of them. I have heard our uncle’s version of the story too, it is just a lie that covers a family secret one step deeper than the family secret everyone knows.

I want to extend my congratulations to everyone that has taken the time to express there opinion today. Ultimately it doesn’t matter who people feel will make the best decision for the United States, only that people make a decision. I would rather survive through things that I disagree with than listen to people that didn’t invest anything complain about how the world turned out in their absense.

For the next four years we will live in a very different place than in the last eight. We each get to decide whether we are going to invest in a more prosperous United States or combat it. I hope that you make the most of our future.

Good Night and Good Luck