Favoritism between siblings isn’t always blatant. Sometimes, a parent secretly has a favorite child but tries to hide that as much as possible to ensure all of their children get the same amount of love and support. Other times, favoritism manifests as authoritative parenting for the older sibling and permissive parenting for the much younger sibling, or paying for their older child’s college while leaving the younger one without a cent for their education. 

This story is one of those times when favoritism was blatant to anybody who paid attention. The aunt of 2 teenage boys recently started being more involved in their lives and quickly realized that the younger of the two is not particularly prioritized by his mother. She suspects that this is because he was the result of an affair that broke up her relationship with the father of her older son, which is a more common cause of favoritism than you might think.