Well....
Archie did have it kind of rough. Coming home and finding your Dad after he committed suicide and cleaning it up before your mom could get there is pretty bad.
The kids obviously had it nice, but I'd say Archie had it fairly rough. They weren't rich growing up, either. He's made it nice for his kids.
You could probably draw a few parallels to John and Archie, without the absent mother and he wasn't raising a son in college- he did, however, try to quit school when that happened to come home and work for his family.