I want to thank everyone for their thoughts about this. I should explain that I don't see anything wrong with a son asking his mother for a dance at his wedding-- that's perfectly normal and understandable. I suppose it's the way in which he did this. He swooped in on the two of us, yelling, "Mamma!" and whirled my wife away, leaving me standing there empty-handed. I dunno. In light of the history of the tense relationship between this SS and myself, I think that this is a tad insensitive and impolite.