Time.com reports that boys who have close relationships with their mothers may have better mental health than do those with more distant relationships.  A recent study, presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, found that boys who maintained close emotional connections to their mothers were more emotionally available as they aged, and had better mental health ratings.

The study, conducted by Carlos Santos, a professor at Arizona State University School of Social and Family Dynamics, surveyed 426 boys through middle school.  He found, interestingly enough, that the father-son relationship does not have the same effect.

Santos described his findings as such, “If you look at the effect size of my findings, mother support and closeness was the most predictive of boys’ ability to resist [hyper-masculine] stereotypes, and therefore predictive of better mental health.”