Ranting: The Incomplete Map

I've given some thoughts to parenting. Namely what the parents are doing (which sometimes they may not be aware of), how they see it, and how we receive it.

The most frequent things parents tell us begin with "Don't". Don't do this, don't do that, and some other grammatically possible variants. It's easy to get annoyed at sentences like that because they reminded us nothing more than restraints, boundaries, and disciplinary rules that we feel are limiting our lives. At a period in time where we seek for answers that are not present (or if present, are not what we are seeking)and explore the boundaries, being reminded of what seems like strict borders that are meant to box us in can be--yes--annoying.
That's not to mention the fact that all the "not" we hear are very discouraging. Negation does have a negative feel to it.

But consider this from a different perspective. Our parents, for all that they are our parents, are still humans with limited knowledge but (hopefully, and true in most cases) more wisedome (sp?) than us. They know, and we know, that the so-called "road of life" is only one possible route on a map of Chance, that there are many "roads less traveled" out there. They only know the road they've traveled and peered down on, and they know their limited knowledge. On the same line, they (at least, some of them) realize that what may worked for them may not necessarily work for their children, and they realize their children are standing at the "crossroad" (I hate the cliches, but some of them do create such nice imagery), exploring, so what they've eventually (consciously or subconsciously) decided to do is warn us. All the "don't do this" and "don't do thats" essentially translates to "watch out, that's a one way street", "pay attention, no U-turn there". They have never seen the completed map of Chance--no human ever will--but they are telling us, from their own experience, which roads we must be wary of, must not travel down because they realized that they can't limit us to the roads they've walked, that we must find our own roads. Because they only see the incomplete map, they can only tell us where not to go and hope that we can find our own way to reach where we want to be.

All the "no"s still sound pretty bad though, but hey, I guess it's either that or getting a metaphorical ticket while driving (it's the 21st century, remember?) the road(s) of life.

There're a heck lot of one-way streets.