As I am no older than an emerging adult, I cannot estimate based on my personal experience how the relationships between generations change in the course of life. According to Syre, they normally remain difficult and may even grow more strained due to the influence of the past (2019). This is what I actually see between my mother and my grandmother. They have survived a great number of occasions together, but, being the representatives of different generations with divergent values, they rarely agreed. As far as I can judge, they have accumulated disagreements throughout their lives, which results in constant arguments at the current stage of their relationship. The reasons are frequently so minor that I find it absolutely unreasonable to discuss them emotionally, for instance, what to buy for a dessert.
In addition to the burden of the past, such behavior apparently derives from the desire of both to occupy the leading position in the relationship. Yu et al. highlight that, since the birth of a child, this position is occupied by a parent, who hence perceives the child as a follower by definition (2017). Meanwhile, in the course of maturation, children gain experience, develop cognitive skills, and finally become self-reliant enough to be leaders themselves. Parents, whose minds grow more and more rigid with age, are not always ready to adapt to the changes, which inevitably leads to collisions. Thus, my grandmother still believes herself to be more competent and aware than her daughter, even though the latter is already a middle-aged adult. My mother, in turn, seeks to demonstrate that she is not a child anymore, and the patronage of that kind insults her.
References
Syre, S. (2019). How do parent-child relationships work in later life? LeadingAge. Web.
Yu, X., Miao, Ch., Leung, C., & Salmon, Ch. Th. (2017). Role conflict and ambivalence in the aged-parent-adult-child relationship. International Journal of Crowd Science, 1(2), 161-170.