Honoring Your Parents - only gains (Chullin 110b)

I've always wondered why so few laws in the Torah have rewards attached to them. Honoring parents (Kibud Av v'Em) is perhaps the most famous. Here's the text:

Honor your father and your mother, that you may long endure on the land that the Lord your God is assigning to you. (Ex. 20:12)

According to the daf from a few days ago there is an interesting reason for this. The text reads:

 Any positive command whose reward is written in the verse alongside its command, the lower (earthly) court is not admonished with respect to it

We know that in the Talmud, a court can compel someone to obey a law, even a positive command like building a sukkah, by punishing them (usually with lashes). However, as the above text teaches, if the Torah gives a reward for doing a commandment, the court cannot compel them to obey the command. That's because the punishment for not obeying the commandment is simply that they will not receive the reward.

In other words: the only thing one has to lose by not obeying his parents is the "reward" of a longer life! Should they mess up, their life expectancy stays what it always would be.

So what's so special about obeying one's parents? I imagine the tradition knows just how hard it is to truly honor one's parents. How do you care for them when they are old? How do you take their advice when you think you are correct?

Like everything we make mistakes with our parents, but knowing what's on the line and that it's easier to mess up here (as opposed to simply not putting up a sukkah), the tradition creates a fail safe. We can only go up from here!