I'm both sensitive from experience to unequal treatment of siblings, and I agree with it in some cases. And in this case, even if LW weren't a complete tool, some unequal treatment might be warranted. If one sibling is giving a smart TV and ipad, and the other can only afford handmade gifts, then even if both gifts are chosen and given with equivalent love and care, it makes sense to effusively praise the handmade gifts just because everything in society will make the poorer sibling feel shitty.
(Unless they're in a subculture that devalues store-bought gifts, but if that's true, LW sure as heck didn't absorb that.)
All that being said, LW's values are not only not Jane's, I also don't think they're the parents', and that's just too bad for LW. Countless people who choose to be artists or community organizers or librarians get treated worse by parents than the sibling who becomes a stockbroker or a lawyer cough cough immigrant parents cough cough, and while "cultural turnabout is fair play" is unfair to any particular individual, the advice to LW is just the same as it would be to the reverse (ie. if Jane wrote because their parents were nicer to the better-off kid). Find things you love that your parents do value, find things in common with them, or find other support networks and acknowledge that life is what it is. The fact that I dislike LW doesn't change the advice.
Re: Anyone reminded of Alex Keaton in _Family Ties_?
I'm both sensitive from experience to unequal treatment of siblings, and I agree with it in some cases. And in this case, even if LW weren't a complete tool, some unequal treatment might be warranted. If one sibling is giving a smart TV and ipad, and the other can only afford handmade gifts, then even if both gifts are chosen and given with equivalent love and care, it makes sense to effusively praise the handmade gifts just because everything in society will make the poorer sibling feel shitty.
(Unless they're in a subculture that devalues store-bought gifts, but if that's true, LW sure as heck didn't absorb that.)
All that being said, LW's values are not only not Jane's, I also don't think they're the parents', and that's just too bad for LW. Countless people who choose to be artists or community organizers or librarians get treated worse by parents than the sibling who becomes a stockbroker or a lawyer cough cough immigrant parents cough cough, and while "cultural turnabout is fair play" is unfair to any particular individual, the advice to LW is just the same as it would be to the reverse (ie. if Jane wrote because their parents were nicer to the better-off kid). Find things you love that your parents do value, find things in common with them, or find other support networks and acknowledge that life is what it is. The fact that I dislike LW doesn't change the advice.