Based on what I remember from my biology class, many traits are decided by dominant vs recessive genes. The genes in your DNA are arranged in pairs. Your parents each provide you with one half of that pair.

• Recessive genes require both genes to be the same to be expressed.
• Dominant genes only require one to be expressed.

Let’s assume that tallness is the dominant gene and being shorter is the recessive gene.

If your father has one gene for being more than 182 cm and one gene for being less than 170 cm, he will be tall because the gene for tallness is dominant. If your mother has two genes that both select for being less than 170 cm tall, she will be noticeably shorter than your father because she has two recessive genes.

If your father gave you his recessive gene and your mother gave you one of her recessive genes, you would be noticeably shorter than your father.

This can also happen when both parents are tall but each of them carries both the dominant (tallness) gene and the recessive (shorter) gene. If they each provide only the recessive gene to their offspring, the result is an offspring that is significantly shorter than their parents.