Altered Nova said:
It's pretty unfair to blame Gohan not reaching his true potential entirely on Chichi. Wanting your child to get an education, and find a good job, and generally be a productive member of society with useful skills beyond just punching things are not exactly the hallmarks traits of a sociopath. It's not her fault that she didn't realize she lives in a Shonen manga where a new villain ten times more powerful than the last who is always intent on destroying the Earth shows up every few years like clockwork.
Also Gohan could have ignored his mom's advice and ran off to train pretty much anytime he wanted to after Namek, and after Namek he damn well should have understood just how brutal his world was and how much being strong was necessary. But he has a gentle personality, dislikes fighting and actually loves studying. So it would be more appropriate to blame him for not reaching his own potential, rather than his mother. He understood the stakes better than her and still avoided training his martial arts skills whenever he could.
(Although in the Dragonball Online/Xenoverse canon, he did become a scientist and his widely published research on the science of ki manipulation resulted in a worldwide boom in martial arts popularity among normal people, massively increasing the average power level of the entire race. So his nerdiness was actually a hugely useful thing in the video game universes!)
Also Gohan could have ignored his mom's advice and ran off to train pretty much anytime he wanted to after Namek, and after Namek he damn well should have understood just how brutal his world was and how much being strong was necessary. But he has a gentle personality, dislikes fighting and actually loves studying. So it would be more appropriate to blame him for not reaching his own potential, rather than his mother. He understood the stakes better than her and still avoided training his martial arts skills whenever he could.
(Although in the Dragonball Online/Xenoverse canon, he did become a scientist and his widely published research on the science of ki manipulation resulted in a worldwide boom in martial arts popularity among normal people, massively increasing the average power level of the entire race. So his nerdiness was actually a hugely useful thing in the video game universes!)
I would argue that Gohan's seeming aversion to fighting has several factors. Pleasing his mother, trauma from his earlier experiences involving enemies far beyond him, and the fact that he wasn't trained properly to begin with. He got thrown into a lot ill prepared and didn't really fight in a battle he was prepared for until Cell, and even then barely so. Most of that would have been mitigated by him being trained properly to start with.
It's also not really true that he doesn't like fighting. He says he doesn't enjoy it like his father does, not that he doesn't like it at all. I'd also point out that he was in far from a good mood when he made that comment. The adult fighters had been putting a lot on his shoulders for years before that, and up to that point he couldn't really handle it. They didn't have much choice given what they were dealing with, but that probably had a lot to do with why he doesn't care for fighting like the other Saiyan blooded characters. Though, again, if he had been trained right to begin with, he'd have been better able to handle everything that happened before then.
He had a fine time competing in the tournament at the end of the manga, and runs around as a superhero as a hobby. Being a superhero is a strange past-time for someone who hates fighting. Particularly since he has no real reason to be doing it beyond it being a hobby. He doesn't have some tragic past or serious motive for doing it. He does enjoy it, but doesn't like the life and death battles for the fate of the world, which is somewhat understandable. The non-saiyan fighters probably all feel the same way, but still enjoy training and fighting as an activity.
There's also no reason he couldn't still have managed to end up smart and productive as well as a fighter. They aren't mutually exclusive goals.
By beef with Chichi isn't just that she held back Gohan, that's just part of it. She's got all the signs of being an abusive and manipulative spouse. She's also delusional and single minded to the point it's a problem for those around her. She should have figured out what the deal was with the world a lot sooner. I also fail to see how saving the world from extinction level threats is not productive or useful to society.
I would get if she limited the amount of time Goku was allowed to train him for the sake of his studies, but she seems to have actively put a wedge between them and kept them apart. Beyond just the time Goku lost while he was dead. He wanted to train with him while he was young, but she wouldn't allow it. He says this when he first shows up with him at Roshi's place.
Chichi is not a sane person, and never really has been. Even as a child she was running around overreacting and blasting or pummeling anything around her when Goku met her. She was raised by a notorious bandit and thug, and remained pretty abrasive and aggressive. She's a bit more than just overprotective and would be legitimately dangerous as a spouse to anyone but Goku.