Sometimes strip clubs have employees working in the dressing room who are titled “house mom.” Sometimes these employees are on the club's payroll, given a minimum wage and title VII protections like normal employees. Sometimes these employees are misclassified as independent contractors, even though they are actually employees. If the latter is true, house moms don't get a minimum wage. Either way, house moms primarily rely on dancer tips to make a living.

It is the house mom's job to do things such as make sure the dancers get to stage on time, bring food to the dancers, supply the dancers with hygiene products, help dancers with makeup and costumes, provide emotional support to dancers, and clean the dressing room. Any other workplace would refer to this role as manager, but because strip clubs love to exploit women in any way possible in order to save money, house moms exist. In return for the house mom's presence, the dancers usually refer to the house mom as “mom,” give her significant amounts of their dance money and engage in gossip with her.

It is in the club’s best legal interests to have house moms engage in managerial commands and duties. That way, if the club is sued and the club manager is called to testify, he can deny that a manager ever controlled a dancer in the workplace. He needn’t mention the house mom.

I almost never get along with the house moms. There are numerous reasons why I do not get along with them, and all of my reasons are extremely valid. If you are a dancer reading this and you do not get along with house moms, your reasons are probably also extremely valid.

One of the main reasons why I do not get along with house moms, is because I am a mature adult woman, and do not emotionally rely on a pathetic low life bottom feeder who hangs out in strip club dressing rooms. I have never, fucking EVER referred to these women as “mom.” My preference to refer to them as their legal names has usually upset them to varying degrees. Most house moms have some kind of discernible mental illness, so they are emotionally invested in the concept of being called “mom” by a group of young women, with all of the intimate power leverage that maternity gives them. It upsets the deluded narcissism of house moms to have an independent, self-sufficient woman such as myself impeding on their dressing room space, refusing to be infantilized in a pseudo parent-child dynamic. I have always found it to be extremely warped, exploitative and disgusting to have a coworker use such a title-- an extension to the equally corrupt idea of some workplaces “being like family!”

Another reason why house moms usually dislike me and try to get me fired, is because I hardly ever “tip” them my money. One exception is the rare occasion of when I forget to bring my own food and buy theirs. Another exception is when the strip club sets a mandatory minimum amount of money that I have no choice in giving away to the house mom. In the latter case, I make sure to steal bottles of body spray and other hygiene items from the house moms, to get back some of the money that I lost with the mandatory minimum “tip” that is essentially stolen from me.

A lot of house moms are former dancers or other industry workers. Sometimes house moms are just random outsiders who fell into the job. Either way, house moms are people without a lot of life accomplishments and skills. They are people who need to make an income and do not have the mental capacity to pursue other economic avenues. Combined with these traits, house moms have lots of free time to sit around doing nothing in the dressing room but talk shit. Many losers with low self-esteem are threatened by people who they know are better than they are. If a dancer is reserved, successful at making money and not interested in the petty minutiae of dressing room gossip, dancers such as myself, this causes house moms to engage in gossip with other dancers who are not as successful. This leads to bullying, physical assault, threats, and property damage. All of these things have happened to me because of house moms, when I have done nothing but ignore them, go about my work shift, not use their products or given them my money.

I did not know what a house mom was for the entire time that I danced in Oregon, and only learnt in my mid-twenties after I ventured out of that state. Some strip clubs have a male house mom. Polekatz in Chicagoland had an obese, flamboyantly homosexual male Latino house mom, named Angel, regularly screaming at and berating dancers until they cried.

It would be great if more strippers involved in labor rights tried to destroy the power of the “house mom.” I have considered the thought of joining forces with house moms, since they are exploited workers. However, I do not believe that any house mom would ever have the interest, independence or mental capacity to ever do that.

In sum, here are what house moms truly are: Strip clubs need to control dancers like employees. House moms are used to manipulate dancers with mommy issues, with maternal demands and instructions that the dancer follows. In exchange, the dancer gives away her hard earned money to her mommy-manager, who usually doesn’t get paid hourly herself because she too is a misclassified employee. Strip clubs save money by using house moms, instead of paying an actual manager with a salary and benefits. Not only does the house mom get paid by the dancer, but her job feeds her own mental illness and desire to be the maternal center of a family that she never had. When the strip club is sued, it is much easier for them to deny employer obligations when they had a creepy house mom in the dressing room. One might think that dancers would wise up to this and unite against all of these dynamics, but most of them are too stupid and weak to ever do that. Most of the time, the majority of dancers lovingly support the house mom and club. Be it female instinct to self-destruct or a conditioned behavior by society, strip clubs benefit from scab-bitch behavior, have laughed all the way to the bank for many years, and will for many years into the future, even as an occasional lawsuit crops up.