I wasn't parented, I was hatched.

I like to compare my stepsister's life and mine. She is 13 years older than I am and was an only child (my sister is an only child :-) She was the only grandchild until she was 13 and "our" cousin was born (her cousin, my stepcousin who is 6 months younger than I am). Anyway, she was almost spoiled she was so special had a wonderful time being the only child around. But when she was 16-17, her father died. I'm sure that was very hard for her but my stepmother married my father (a really good guy :-) a year later and my father gave her away at her wedding, etc. and my stepsister loved how well my father "took care of" my stepmother. My father, with my stepmother's three brothers' blessing managed and invested the estate of their mother when their father died and that worked out well down through my stepmother's death in 2001, where my stepsister inherited a lot that was left from her grandmother's estate because of my father's good investing. However, my stepsister married right out of college and my brother-in-law, after a few years got more and more abusive and "ugly". It got really bad but he died after 35 years or so. My stepsister married another college "sweetheart" and she's having a wonderful life again now.

So, my stepsister started out life "right" and then had a bad spell when she married and now is fine again. I, on the other hand, didn't have the "good" childhood and my stepmother and I were not a good match so it wasn't until I met my husband that things started going right. My stepsister and I had the approximate "opposite" lives until recently when she remarried and now we're both living happily ever after :-)