Family Relationships, Motherhood, Adult Children

The Secret Love of Sons

Name: The Secret Love of Sons
Author: Nicholas Weinstock
ISBN: 9781573226721

by Nicholas Weinstock

Write a review

Overview

With humor and intelligence, and with the help of hundreds of confidential interviews, Weinstock has discovered the startling place that mothers hold in the heads and hearts of growing men. By offering his own memories and reflections as well as the personal disclosures of other sons, he not only explains the mindsets that drive boys from the nest and keep them insistently independent from their moms, but also illuminates the many ways in which mothers have deeply and continuously affected their sons' lives. What emerges in this profound book is a love letter to mothers, and a smart and surprising blueprint to the emotions of sons of all ages and backgrounds. Men vividly recall their maternally crafted childhoods and reflect gratefully on the solid support and high expectations of these women who knew them even before they knew themselves. But sooner or later every growing boy gets the message that he is obligated to become a man, to leave the "secret garden" he shared with his mother and assert himself in a world that frowns on mama's boys. How sons seek to distinguish themselves, how they act on and shelve their deeper feelings, and how their mothers' contributions are incorporated into their developing lives are the revelations contained in The Secret Love of Sons - wisdom that both mothers and sons have gone without for far too long.

What Nancy Friday did for mothers and daughters, Nicholas Weinstock does for mothers and sons. Every mother who has endured the 30-second phone call, the "oh, Mom, " and the mysterious silences from her son will find wisdom and reassurance in this funny, touching, and profound book. 224 pp. 40,000 print.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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.)