Do Parents Generally Know Best? I'd Say So!

I would say yes, my parents—especially my mother—generally know what's in my best interest. They've never, as far as I recall, led me down the wrong path. There are many times where I think they don't know as well as I do the expected outcome of a given situation, but most of the time they are ultimately right. For example, if we're at a store—say, Walmart—just looking around and something catches my eye, I'll beg my mom to let me buy it. There are normally two outcomes in this situation. One outcome is where my mom asks me why I feel that the item in question is worth spending money on and there ends up being a ten-minute discussion that could easily be summarized with "There's no way you're getting that." The other outcome is where my mom gives in all too easily, as if she just knows the money will go to waste but wants me to see for myself why. Sometimes, I actually do enjoy the item for more than a week, and when I try to shove it in my mom's face that I was right all along, all she says is, "I'm glad you enjoy it." However, when I stop playing with it after a day or two, I get a certain look from her that practically screams "I told you so." After all these years, the tally chart heavily favors Mom, so I tend to listen to her without question.
It's actually difficult to see why parents wouldn't know best; they've been on this planet longer than their kids, they've made their share of mistakes and learned from them, and they've learned a lot from their parents (who learned from their parents, who learned from their parents, et cetera). Except for in some special cases, parents have way more experience with the world and knowledge of how everything works than we kids do. So, unless the parents are dead-set on screwing over their child(ren) or are one of the special cases, it would behoove a child to take their parents' advice into strong consideration.