Agreed, and in that sense, the story is well done.

My main point though is: there is no need to feel "rail-roaded" by the Main Quest, though I can understand the sense by some that that is what it is doing to us.

Depending on your actual disposition as a player, and/or the disposition you wish to portray in your character in game, you can play it however you want.

1. You can play the devoted, and hopeful parent, who (despite any evidence about the intervening time) HOPES that her baby is still a baby who has not yet been 'shaped' by the Commonwealth into a complete stranger, and therefore go on a mad dash to save him, no matter what additional perils it might bring relative to a more moderate pace that allows you to get your bearings.

2. You can play as a basically good parent who is more rational and reasonable and who, although wanting very much to find his/her son alive and still a baby, realizes that there is no guarantee that the kid is even still alive at all, and that he may well have already died of old age! (until you meet Kellogg at which point it should be clear the kid is probably still alive, although no longer a baby). With this mindset you can alternate how quickly you press on with the main quest as you pretty much want, under the grounds that "with nothing but hope, why rush and get myself killed?"

3. You can play a neglectful and uncaring parent who really couldn't care one way or the other but might pursue the MQ just for curiousitie's sake.

4. You can play a complete sociopath who wants to find the kid so you can kill 'em!

That is my main point: the MQ does not "railroad" anyone into anything any more than any previous MQ from any previous Bethesda title, and indeed, it railroads much LESS than in some other contemporary AAA titles of similar genre.