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.