Yes and no. Some grown cats can be parental to kittens or be mean to kittens. Mine didn't care lmao. My late cat didn't give a shit until the kittens kept bothering him and he just wanted to be left alone. He was meowing to the cats like he was saying "go away"
If the cats approach the kittens on their own terms, sniff them then take them in. Even lions have taken in cheetah and leapard cubs that way.
But sniffing is important for cats, if you ever tried to just pet a cat, most will move out of the way. You have to first let them sniff your hand before before they let you touch them.
Cats have poor vision detail ( they can see motion good and during night) but to them your face is a blur. Their sense of smell though is better than the average dog though. And they use that to gauge who the other is. Of course they can quickly smell it is a kitten, but they can't be sure, for all they know it is an animal that ate a kitten. So like a person looking at things in detail, cats smell for more details. Once they are sure it is another cat, then they decide to approach it or not. But many kittens are a bit naive and just start pouncing before the other cat could smell them properly. Which causes them to run away.
As for younger cats annoying the older ones, yeah that is common, I've seen it plenty of times