Epigenetics isn't a magic wand; unless you really think people have "math receptors" in their body that will tune their epigenetics to be even worse at math in the future if they're frustrated today, and then pass it on to their children, it's a silly theory.
Moreover, most people have it exactly backwards... to the extent passing epigenetics to your children makes sense at all from an evolutionary perspective, it is passing adaptations, not weaknesses. If a parent has a hard time finding food, the stress of being hungry passes on to a child to make them smaller, i.e., less needing of food because they're not going to try to grow as much. Epigenetics is not "If you break a leg, your child will be born with a broken leg". That's just Lamarkianism, and Lamarkianism is still false.
> Moreover, most people have it exactly backwards... to the extent passing epigenetics to your children makes sense at all from an evolutionary perspective, it is passing adaptations, not weaknesses.
While I don't think epigenetic math anxiety is particularly plausible (for, basically, the "math receptor" reason you state earlier), an adaptation in general may turn out to be a weakness in a particular case. If, say, it was possible to epigenetically pass on stress triggers (an "adaptation", because having a stronger, quicker fight-or-flight response to a particular environmental condition that is a frequent stress source might generally be an advantage) this might manifest as a weakness in some particular cases. Now, because its hard to believe that there are "math receptors", it seems unlikely that even if this was possible in some general sense, that it would be possible in some way where "math" was the specific sensitized trigger, but if it was...
People are social animals. We get our social cues from others. If parents, teachers, etc show anxiety over something like math, it is entirely natural for youth to develop the same anxieties.
No need to go that far. Lots of behavior is heritable, so if one or both parents have "math anxiety", there's a chance their children will also have it.
Moreover, most people have it exactly backwards... to the extent passing epigenetics to your children makes sense at all from an evolutionary perspective, it is passing adaptations, not weaknesses. If a parent has a hard time finding food, the stress of being hungry passes on to a child to make them smaller, i.e., less needing of food because they're not going to try to grow as much. Epigenetics is not "If you break a leg, your child will be born with a broken leg". That's just Lamarkianism, and Lamarkianism is still false.