Parents, how do you respond to other parents bragging?

[benedetta]

My child is small for his age, quite small. I am small, too, so it follows that my child would be small. I feel size, particularly amongst males, to be a frontier that needs to be crossed in terms of overcoming prejudice.

I receive barbs from family members about being small. 'Why are you so short? Oh you're so short.' I do worry that my son may have problems when he becomes a man if he continues to have a reduced stature. People are cruel about short men. Think "Napoleon complex". He's quite young now. Maybe he will be tall, or taller than his parents at least, when he grows up, who knows.

I feel anoyed when family members go on about how large their children are, how their children are in the upper percentiles. They brag about it. And it's kind of constant. I get tired of hearing about it. My child is way at the bottom and it's like, 'poor you'. I feel uncomfortable with this. I normally don't say anything. Should I respond? How could I do this without sounding defensive?