This article attempts to account for the existence of parallel systems of values in families where grandparents condemn divorce, yet act to support their adult children when they face relationship breakdown. The article seeks to understand the context in which values are formed and how they can gradually become more complex and contradictory as social and personal contexts change. The article explores change across two generations of family relationships in order to add to the debate on whether commitments within families are in decline. It also addresses the question of how policies on families can be formulated given the complexity, and contradictory nature, of the values that family members hold.