My sister was always the obvious and acknowledged favourite. I paid for my own 3 year college diploma and was forced by circumstance to live at home; her 4 year university bachelors, teaching certificate and rent were paid for. I took the bus, she got a car. I bought calling cards, she got a cell phone.
I got beat. She got beat. We suffered that together.
I'm not griping or whinging here, I doubt if I were offered those things that I would take them. I like who I am and how hard I've worked to get here. And besides, I never had to get a restraining order against dear ol' dad, he left me alone after I moved away, and I hadn't seen him in years even before he got locked up.
In terms of the article, I was definitively more prepared for the adult world. My sister still suffers the damage from decades of abuse (or perhaps an unpreparedness born of being sheltered). Does it matter? I'm not sure. If things were more inclusive, I might've been more aware of what was happening to her and better able to protect her and less inclined to consider her cries for help as spoiled attention seeking behaviour. If I was sent away to school, however, I might not have been there to spare her what I did. I don't regret having been given so much less. My only regret is that I was unable or in youthful naiveté unwilling to stop a tyrant or convince a doting parent of the blinders she had been wearing for so many long years.
But I digress.