Wed Jan 17 16:55:57 2024 UTC by CrazyPaya234
On an alt because my brother knows about my main, and I don’t want this attention to come towards my parents and make it to my grandparents [somehow]
I never had a relationship with my grandparents from either side of my family. On my father’s side, they died before I was born, and on my mother’s I barely ever saw them. And when I did, it seemed as though they had no intensions of speaking or interacting with me. I was at home for the longer weekend because my parents needed help cleaning out the attic, and in one of the old boxes there was a old picture of my grandmother and my mom when she was younger. The picture got me thinking about why my mother’s grandparents always had acted so strange around me, as if they were avoiding me entirely. I brought the subject up to my mother while we were cleaning up the attic, and she told me why. She told me that my grandparents had always been hyper-religious, specifically catholic. This came as no surprise as I had deduced such from various mannerisms they had shown in the little time I had meet them. She finally said that the reason my grandparents didn’t want to be around me was because I was left handed.
WHAT.
She explained further that the left-hand had been interpreted as the devil’s hand as a catholic superstition. Because of this, my grandparents had always been wary of me, which grew out to them avoiding having a relationship with me entirely. I’m at a loss for words as to how these insane traditions continue to be prevalent in religious circles, especially in older individuals. It saddens me that despite how Christians often claim to be a welcoming community to all people, that many exclusive and elitist traditions continue to be practiced. I hope as time goes on, we open our eyes to realize how absolutely batshit insane these traditions, and maybe religions as a whole, really are.
Cool. I can scare Catholics.
Sounds like you were better off never interacting with those nutjobs. Good for your mom protecting you from their crazy, because that is the sort of thing that would leave a scar on an impressionable young mind.
Like being forced to be right handed, which causes long term problems like stuttering.
My wife’s mom was left handed but forced to use her right hand to write.
Anyway, she died of a degeneratieve nerve disorder which slowly took away her ability to control her muscles, while her brain reminded intact. Really terrible. Her right hand was among the last part of her body to lose control, so she was able to write after she lost the ability to speak.
So by pure chance at least one person benefitted from these crazy anti-leftie ideas. (She could just as easily have lost her ability to use her right hand first, which would have been a horrible twist of fate.)
That sucks, sorry. I’m left handed and got (still get) teased,but this is over the top. Glad you seam no worse for the wear. Knowing this I would “kill them with kindness” ,but to others in front of them. You clearly are not the devil they think you are, so show them.
Faith can be a beautiful thing. We all need something to believe in… However, “religion” is toxic and will tear down everything that can bring you joy in service of at best an unprovable hypothesis, and at worst a delusion.
Next time you see them slide your right hand up into your sleeve and tell them you cut it off. Fight ridiculous with ridiculous
why’s he raising his right fist?
Easy, left handed sign
Because he’s using his dominant hand to hold the sign.
Because he’s left-handed and so his right is the free one after he instinctively picked up the sign with his left?
Sinister and proud of it!
He’s an evangelical Protestant, not a Catholic.
Yeah, but the point is the Lefty solidarity, not his religion.
and. Crazy and religious. Your religious beliefs or lack of are up to you, but I think there are 1.35Billion Catholics who do not have anything like this superstition.
They’ve got all the rest of the crazy religion. I don’t see much difference between thinking left-handedness is evil and all that trumpeting angel crap. All religion is superstitious dogshit.
This is a weird thing to say given biases and prejudices against left handed people are so well documented. Like, it’s not specific to catholicism but in terms of where you might find these silly superstitions in the modern era, it’s gonna be a non-zero number that believe this shit.
OPs grandparents being case and point.
Nah, this is crazier than average but they’ve all got something pretty bad.
My grandmother would beat my mother with a ruler if she tried to write left handed. It scarred her for life.
Your grandparents are idiots, and I say this as a theistic Christian that believes in the existence of the devil.
Maaaaaan, I wish I had someone like that in my life right now that I could feel really good about telling off.
This might be the wrong community to say this in but…
As far as I can tell it has never been official catholic dogma to persecute left-handed children. It’s just not a thing.
Now Catholicism does come with a baggage of superstitions inherited from ancient Rome, including the whole “sinistra” thing. However while I strongly believe organized religion is the roots of many evils, this is hardly one of them. Your grandparents were just complete nutjobs. I’ve heard several stories of “gram-gram was freaked-out when I started showing left-hand dominance” (from people who are now 40+ because this superstition had died off before the war) but they always ended with gram-gram getting over herself.
My ex can write with both hands because her parents wouldn’t let her be left handed. I can tell you she’s significantly younger than you’re thinking. She was also catholic
My mom is left handed, was raised catholic, and if I remember correctly my grandpa had to tell a teacher to fuck off who wanted her to learn to write with her right hand.
I’m not disagreeing that the superstition exists, but anyone who was still preventing children from being left-handed after WWII was either old or a fucking moron. Now maybe there’s some correlation between religiousness and susceptibility to superstition (/s) but I think that’s where the catholic church’s involvement ends. There’s enough terrible things to blame them for, no need to make stuff up.
Well, it was common for schools back in the early-mid 1900s to force lefties to write with their right hands. Not just Catholic specifically, my grandmother’s public school forced her to write right-handed.
But I can say that no one in the family was ex-communicated for being a lefty, and if they were, it was prior to the 1900s. You’re right, OP’s grandparents are just crazy unless OP was born in the 1920s or something.
early-mid 1900s
It was still happening in the late 1980s. That’s why I have bad penmanship with both hands.
Well i can say this not a common belief. But dam that’s harsh family.
It was extremely common up until about the 60s, so anyone born in that era may hold the same beliefs. My grandmother was forced into right handedness (in Jamaica).
I know a guy who was forced to write right-handed in school in Massachusetts. He’s about 25 now. It’s crazy to think that there’s still people out there believing this stuff.
what that would break the law.
I’m a Christian (Seventh Day Adventist, found this post by sorting by local-active) and yeah their grandparents are going on about some rubbish there. “Left-handed people are bad”/“The left hand is the devil’s hand” is not Biblical in any way, shape, or form.
the overwhelming majority of the hateful, bigoted shit these people believe is not biblical.
Cause they don’t want to be biblical. They don’t want to be christian. They want to be hateful assholes with a self gratifying justification… and whats more wonderful self gratifying justification than the power of religion.
Seriously if your brother finds out that’s not on you or your mum. That’s 100% your grandparents’ fault.
My mother was disfellowshipped from our Kingdom Hall, because my father committed adultery. The lesson is, don’t expect even a cunt-hair’s worth of logic from religious institutions.
Sad to say I know enough about religious fuckery to know why it makes sense in their mind.
Men can’t be expected to control their urges. So its the wife’s responsibility to keep the husband sexually sated so he doesn’t think about cheating. Therefore, its her fault.
Truely disgusting and unfair :/
On an alt because my brother knows about my main, and I don’t want this attention to come towards my parents and make it to my grandparents [somehow]
Dude, there are like 27 people total on Lemmy. I think he’s going to figure it out. 🤔
/S
This is a reddit repost. I know you posted the /s indicator, but just for clarity since this is the top comment, I think it’s worth pointing out.
There are dozens of us! DOZENS!
Why the /s? I ran into my sister a couple of times already. First time she recognised my nick, second she didn’t and quoted my own comment back to me in real life because it was funny. I just told her to check the username when I recognised it.
Your sister recognised your WHAT?! … Oh, sorry, I read that wrong. Nevermind, carry on.
What are you posting, step-brother?
