"Boys are always taller than their mothers"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am 5'9". My DS is 5'6" and is projected to be around 5'8" but not sure that will happen. So unfortunately for him we don't fit the mold.

how old is he? Boys keep often keep growing until 19 or 20.

Almost 18. Still hoping for the growth spurt.

How tall is your husband?

[Anonymous]

I am 5'3 and my husband is 6'2. I wonder how tall my boys will be. I am on the shorter side since I was born premature. My mom is 5'6.

[Anonymous]

I'm 5' 6" and my wife is 5' 11". I doubt it is a given that my son would be taller than his mom.

[Anonymous]

DH and I are close to the same height. Interestingly enough, DD is projected to be taller than DH by 1". I also know of one short male/medium female couple where the daughter was taller than the father.

[Anonymous]

ACtually, I wonder if the OP's friend also thinks that girls are always shorter than their fathers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I are close to the same height. Interestingly enough, DD is projected to be taller than DH by 1". I also know of one short male/medium female couple where the daughter was taller than the father.

What do you mean "projected to be taller than"? How are you projecting this?

[Anonymous]

my dad is 6"3 my mom is 6"1 and iam 6"4 but my mom wears high heels that makes her 6"7 which makes me and my dad feel shorter than my mom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Were there egg donors 22+ years ago?

Yes, but it was not as common as it is now, and a lot more expensive, so you had to be pretty wealthy to try it.

[Anonymous]

I'm 5'7" and my son, who's 9, reaches my shoulders.

nothing scientific - just a fact for now

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is regression to the mean, so a tall mother might have a shorter son. There is a formula that pediatricians use to guess adult height, and it does vary by gender.

I think with boys it's the average of father's height and mother's height plus 2 inches and with girls it's the average of mother's height and father's height minus 2 inches.

So two 6 feet parents would be projected to have a 6'1" son and a 5'11" daughter.

You mean 6'2" and 5'10", right?

Anyhow, men are typically taller than women, and each generation is typically taller than the one before (barring famine etc.), so it's very likely, but not a given, that a boy will be taller than his biological mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend of mine insists that boys are ALWAYS taller than their mothers.

If a boy has a tall father and a short mother, the boy is likely to grow up to be medium (but may be tall or may be short), but if the boy has a tall mother and a short father, then the boy always grows up to be tall? I would love for her to explain how that happens.

I think it's more the idea that a medium height man is taller than a tall woman. So, a boy with a 90th %ile father (6' 2") and a 10th %ile mother (5' 0") might grow up to be 50th %ile (5' 9.3"), which is a lot taller than his mother. While a boy who has 10%ile father (5 ' 5.5 ") and a 90th %ile mother (5' 7.5") will also grow up to be 50 %ile (5' 9.3") which is still a little taller than his mother.

A woman who taller than a 50th %ile man, is rare. Only 2.5% of women are that tall, and most of them will have taller than average sons. They'd have to marry a man around 5' 3.5" to average her out, and assuming that people don't pick their spouses based on height (not a safe assumption) the likelihood of a couple like that would be less than 1/10th of 1%.

Having said that, my adult son and I are both 5'6". He's adopted, but his birth mother was taller than I am. So, we're sort of a counter example, but he had pretty severe asthma as a kid which may have contributed to his low height.

[Anonymous]

Asthma depresses height?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Asthma depresses height?

Uncontrolled asthma can absolutely depress height, as kids burn a lot of energy fighting to breathe. The medications that control asthma, specifically steroids, can also depress height.

[Anonymous]

My XH at 5'8 was shorter than his 5'9 mom until she started shrinking in her 70s. His dad was 5'10 so I don't know what happened genetically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Were there egg donors 22+ years ago?

Of course there were. I was in college then and there were always ads in the school paper looking for egg donors.