The Secret Love of Sons

Weinstock's pop psychology title is a sensitive personal essay based almost entirely on interviews with nearly 200 men (and in many cases their mothers), as well as a frank analysis of his relationship with his own mother. His thesis is that as boys increasingly heed the cultural mandate of macho self-sufficiency, they drift apart from their mothers, revering and excluding them at the same time. A mother's loving support, paradoxically, nudges the son away from her, out into the wide world, and the young man's traumatic disengagement from his mother, according to freelance journalist Weinstock, reverberates throughout his life. Falling in love with a woman, a man leaves behind his mother's unconditional love to earn another female's attentions, which may create a further communication gap, as men rarely discuss their romantic lives with their mothers. Interestingly, many of Weinstock's subjects healed the rift with mom by breaking out of pressurized routines and changing direction in ways their mothers accepted, even as they ""mothered"" mom with emotional support and nurturing care. His inquiry should provoke soul-searching. (Apr.)