What is the meaning of this context?

Question

Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don't they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting onyour own better judgement.

In this bold portion what actually authors want to say. If I don't obey what they will make me? I am confused here. Another line baffled me, Being told I would be expected to talk here. What being told or who told. Could anyone help me to understand these lines above.

Answer 1

I think you've encountered a case of ellipsis across sentence boundaries.

...obey your parents... because if you don't obey your parents, they will make you obey your parents.

That's what the author wanted to say (and did, if you know where to pause in the sentence and how to "read between the lines" -- how to find the ellipsis)

The other phrase

Being told I would be expected to talk here

is harder to interpret without the context. It's likely a participle clause within a larger sentence, like

Being told [that] I would be expected to talk here, I decided to prepare a few notes for myself.

If we rewrite it without the participle, it might be

Because I was^* told [that] I would be expected to talk here, I decided to prepare a few notes for myself.

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^{*) I fixed the tense in the last example.}