Is it my responsibility to create relationship with my 1 year old and her grandparents?
Hi everyone, would love your thoughts on my situation as it is getting me down lately.
My husband’s parents live about a 10‑minute drive away and are both retired, but they have very little involvement in my daughter’s life (she’s 13 months old). What bothers me is that they are extremely involved with their other grandchildren (there are six of them)and they regularly tell us about all the time they spend with them and what they do for them.
Over the past year, I’ve invited them to pop in whenever they’re in the area (which is often, because they visit their other children who live only a few minutes from us). They never come unless I specifically invite them for breakfast or a meal. When they do visit, they barely interact with my daughter and spend most of the time bragging about their other grandchildren. My MIL even refers to my daughter as “your little one” instead of using her name. When I tell them about an achievement of my daughter’s e.g she can say 30 words at 12 months (which is a big deal and I’m very proud of her) they just say oh really? And move on with the conversation, but proceed to tell me about all their other grandchildren (which os totally ok but they don’t want to know about my daughter’s achievements which upsets me)
I’ve also taken my daughter to their house so they can see her, but I’m starting to feel resentful because they don’t make any effort on their own.
At my daughter’s baptism recently, my dad tried to hand her to my in‑laws to hold, and they rejected her. Several guests noticed how uninvolved they were and were shocked by it.
For contrast, my own parents live 30 minutes away, work full‑time, and still see my daughter around four times a week. They genuinely want to spend time with her.
My question is: Is it my responsibility to maintain this relationship when they show no interest?
Another issue is that my husband won’t acknowledge how uninvolved they are, so it’s become this unspoken tension. He did once mention that with his parents you need to “opt-in” - which I totally disagree with. Also to clarify I am not asking for child care from his parents, just that they spend time with her and get to know her . I constantly ask them to come over but am sounding like a broken record - what do I do?