Are You a Stripper Mom?

I am a stripper mom. Are you?

It doesn’t mean that you’re out there working the stripper pole at your local “Gentlemen’s Club.” It’s about being a woman who’s willing to strip down your present self to discover who you were. It’s about embracing your past. Stripping down to the truth, to the bareness, to reality. Facing what was there.

By remembering our past and discovering and creating meanings from it we learn how to move forward.

Being a stripper mom is about stripping down to your past, no matter what it may be, and embracing and accepting it, so that you can live more fully in the present. We all have experiences or jobs or actions from our personal pasts that we view as negative. Instead of letting those things constantly hold us back in life, we can look them squarely in the face and learn from them.

I was a stripper. I was a nude model. I was a serial sexaholic. I was in an abusive relationship. I struggled with my body image, with self-image, with what I wanted to do in life.

Now I’m a mom. I’m happily married. I have a wonderful family. I graduated as valedictorian from college. I have a Master’s degree. I write, I teach, I practice yoga. I create who I am. I look at my past stories, so that I can discover and glean new meanings from who I was. I rewrite my future.

Are you a stripper mom? Are you a woman engaged with using her past stories to create the life you want for yourself now?

Be a stripper mom. Strip down to the truth, to what and who you were, so that you can move forward and become who you want to be. Claim what was, so you can claim what is. See yourself naked then, so you can truly see and be yourself now.

Be a proud stripper mom. Tell the world! And even show the world by wearing a Stripper Mom shirt proudly (plug, plug)!

Tell me about your experiences. Have you stripped down? What did you find?

Stripper Mom on Oprah

I heard through the Internet-vine that Oprah had a real, present-day, stripper mom on her show today. She’s 41, single, and has three kids. And she’s a stripper. Now. Today. In her present life.

Pretty amazing. Makes me think about a lot of things.

I couldn’t imagine being a stripper today at 36. Although I do have to admit, if I was doing it with today’s brainpower, I’d be making a lot more money than I did back when I was a teenager. I had no idea how to be a saleswoman then. At least now I would know what to do to make good tips. And by that I don’t mean doing more than I would want to. I just mean that I would know how to relax and enjoy myself more. I wouldn’t be so wrapped up in whether I was the “perfect” stripper.

But, of course, when I was a stripper, I was not a mother. These two aspects of my life have been mutually exclusive. Although I knew a lot of strippers who had children. I even remember mothers having to bring their kids with them to work sometimes if the babysitter cancelled.

I remember one time; a little boy of maybe seven sat in the dressing room for my entire shift. He did his homework. Ate supper. And went to sleep on his mother’s coat. He didn’t seem to pay much mind to the half-naked women walking around him. I wonder how it affected him.

Stripper mom. Teacher mom. Writer mom. Yoga mom.

Will everything I do forever now be followed by “mom”? Once a stripper. Always a mom.