Relatives can be your harshest critics and your first call in an emergency, often on the same day.

Closeness produces both of those and they are not a contradiction. The people who have known you longest have the most material to criticize and the least distance to keep them polite, and they are also the ones who will drop everything without being asked. Both come from the same place, which is that you are not optional to them.

You can take the second part seriously without accepting the first. Let the critical comment be one person’s opinion rather than a verdict, and let the turning up be real. If the criticism goes past sharp into harmful, that is different, and worth telling someone outside the family.