alt Hacker News> as he would simply end up in his father's shadow as he deemed it utterly Impossible to surpass his brilliance in maths
Definitely true but also bad parenting. Gauss was somewhat of a freak of nature when it came to math. Him and Euler are two of the most unreasonably productive mathematicians of all time.
But what he deemed being posited as true, was this really bad parenting? It could be to head off competition or it could be brutal realism to head off future depression.
Nepotism existed since time immemorial but for a mathematical genius, what was the nepotistic deliverable for the child? A sinecure placement at university?