Rudy Read Online Free

coached Little League even while holding down three jobs to make ends meet! I think about what a commitment that was. In their eyes, their children always came first: “It’s all about the kids.” Despite the difficulties and complications that come with having so many children, it’s as if that one guiding principle kept both of my parents sane and on track. “We had them; we’re responsible for them.” Simple.
    That’s not to say they were perfect parents. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody. And I don’t particularly agree with how much of their discipline was doled out the old-fashioned way. Just about every report card day, at least a few of us boys would get in line for a spanking over the stool in the kitchen. It wasn’t because of our grades. It was over reports that we weren’t being respectful to our teachers or were being troublemakers in the classroom. My dad was concerned with honor and respect. So one after the other, whack! “Next!”
    My brother Francis and I were the main culprits. We were both deemed troublemakers, and we both dealt with the same sort of issues in school. The spankings were so routine that Francis eventually figured a way to get out of it: he’d stuff a couple of thin books down the back of his pants so the hits wouldn’t hurt. My dad was so busy going from one kid to the next that he didn’t even notice! There were other times when my dad would get so frustrated he’d spank you a second or third time for no apparent reason. I get it. With fourteen crazy kids running around in a little house, all of his worry about fixing the car, and paying the bills, I’d probably want to whack something too. But I wonder what it taught us. Did it keep us in line? Maybe. Would we have turned out for the worse without it? Hard to say. My brothers and sisters and I all grew up to be good people, and I say that without bragging. There are no big mess-ups in the whole family of fourteen. That’s pretty extraordinary. Yet I think that’s a reflection of the love and support our parents showed more than any hand-to-rear discipline. Even so, it’s a tricky game to second-guess and look back with twenty-twenty hindsight. There are no instant replays in life. You get what you get and you have to live with the calls that were made at the time.
    Setting corporal punishment aside, I think a lot of parents, teachers, priests, and other authority figures forget just how much influence their words alone can have on a young child. For instance, when we went to the little church attached to our elementary school, St. Mary Magdalene, on Sundays, our family took up two full pews: one for the boys, one for the girls. In order to keep us quiet throughout mass, our parents were strict. They insisted that we never, ever turn around, and my dad told us that if we talked in church, God would punish us and our ears would fall off. What a horrible thing to say! I believed it too—for a very long time. If my dad told it to me, why wouldn’t I believe it? I was scared to death to open my mouth ’cause I liked my ears just the way they were—attached to my head!
    I’m not sure how old I was when I finally shook off that fear of losing my ears in church. Heck, when I’m under the glow of those stained-glass windows to this day I barely speak—and if I do, I keep my voice down. It’s an amazing thing how a parent can fill your head with goofy thoughts like that, and how they can haunt you the rest of your life. They’re goofy thoughts that have no good reason to be there, but they are so incredibly difficult to get rid of once they’re embedded in your brain.
    I don’t blame my parents for that kind of stuff. Their intentions were good. They were doing the best they could given their situation, and Lord knows they were learning on the job with no guidebook other than memories of how they had been raised themselves. But