NEED ADVICE! Am I overreacting?

Question

VERY long story short my husband and I have our 6 month old daughter, my sister in law has her 5 month old son. My in laws do everything for my sister in law, they consistently go out of their way for my nephew, but we ALWAYS have to take our daughter to see them. At first I didn’t mind it because I want my daughter to have strong connections with our family, but lately I’ve noticed they would go weeks and without seeing her if we didn’t bring her over. 
Just yesterday they drove 30 minutes out of their way to see my nephew and go out to dinner with my SIL- we live less than 10 minutes from this place and they didn’t even ask to come see our daughter or ask for us to meet them so they could see her. 
I’m just honestly so fed up with having to force this relationship. When we’re with them and they have my nephew, they don’t do ANYTHING with my daughter, we end up holding her the entire visit. 
They want us to come over tonight to see her, but it will end in the SAME way it always does and I do not plan on going and my husband feels as though I’m being petty.. 😕 
I need advice on what to do. Or clarity if I am being petty, I’m just so over them making me feel as though my daughter is less important. I will not have her feel that way by her own GRANDPARENTS because I can guarantee this will go on as long as we allow this.

Answer

Umm no. They clearly have a preference which is not okay. Not much you can do about it except maybe confront them? Or give your husband all those examples so he can open his eyes and see what's going on.

Answer

I won’t force anyone to be in my daughters life. Im not going to go running for anyone who doesn’t put effort in with her. Family or not

Answer

I think you should calmly tell them how it comes off to you. Maybe they don’t realize or maybe they think SIL needs more help/support. It won’t get better if you don’t talk about it though!

Answer

I don’t think you’re overreacting at all. I would try to talk to them, especially since they are so close in age, so it will potentially be a huge problem later on when the kids actually notice themselves. I have a somewhat similar situation, just that my grandparents (my sons great grandparents) prefers my SIL’s dog over my son, their only great grandson. Sadly they don’t even understand it, so they have only seen him once.

Answer

I agree with you that it’s heartbreaking and everything, but I still think it’s important that you try to put it aside and continue to cultivate a relationship with them, because it is important for children to have a good network of extended family. I would MAYBE have a SUPER delicate, non-confrontational conversation with them that you plan out in advance and bounce off of friends or even better, a therapist, to bring it to their attention. I’m sure they aren’t doing it on purpose, unless there is more to it that you either didn’t mention here or aren’t aloof yourself. Have you had a strained or distant relationship with them in the past, or has your husband had a difficult or distant relationship with his parents? Perhaps it’s that your SIL made more of an attempt to make your MIL a part of the pregnancy/delivery/early days of her baby’s life than you did, considering she’s likely closer with her mom than you are? If that’s the case, I would work to cultivate a stronger relationship with her, ask her for parenting advice, even if you don’t want or need it. Confide little things in her to help create a more intimate bond. It may also just be the case that grandma prefers boys, like my grandma. My aunts knew that, and made us grandkids aware of that since day one, and we just didn’t take it personally and even made jokes about it. We still love grandma and spend a lot of time with her, and all laugh at the massive discrepancy between the piles of Xmas presents. :)

Answer

My fiancé mom and dad don’t bother to see our kids and they live literally 15mins up the street from us, they only see them on holidays which is fine with me , I stopped after our second kid with trying to get them to be part of their lives. It’s their lost in the end.

Answer

I don’t know why this is set anonymous but this is my post- I wanted to add, they definitely have a preference as they keep my nephew from Thurs to Sunday every week, no breaks overnight and everything. So theyre practically raising him. This is why I have such an issue with them not spending time with my daughter.. they see him CONSTANTLY and yet it seems they couldn’t be bothered with my daughter. It breaks my heart.. my husband totally understands where I’m coming from he just doesn’t think its a big deal 🙄😔

NEED ADVICE! Am I overreacting?

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