Family relations are complex indeed. When you have multiple generations of a family, there are bound to be multi-generational issues. The trickle-down of trauma can go from parent to child to child to child across decades of a family. New issues arise and old ones might transform into new ones, but either way, odds are you’ve got at least one fraught relationship in your family. You may have learned to put away your issues and only see them on certain holidays, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t still come up from time to time. 

And as you get older, sometimes you become privy to certain family stories and pieces of gossip that change your perspective on certain family members. Maybe you respect them less as you get older and see them less as heroes and more as flawed people with backstories of their own. It’s part of the process of growing up.