Sue and Paul became dance parents in 1994 when their daughter put on her first pair of ballet slippers.  Inspired by her love of dance (and realizing that the only way they'd ever spend quality time with her again was to hang around the studio more), they became active members of and then officers in their studio's Dance Company Parents Association.  As years passed they honed their dance parenting skills -- rhinestone application; music editing; peanut, lollipop and honeybaked ham sales; website development; and recital volunteers in assorted capacities.  They also organized studio performance trips to New York, Orlando and Bermuda, and coordinated the dance company's annual cast party and other social events.  In 2002 they took the ultimate dance parenting plunge, enrolling in an adult tap class.  Sue continued tapping at higher levels, while Paul was lucky to survive one recital performance and promptly retired his tap shoes.

Having witnessed years of mama drama and the ugly side of dance competitions, and hoping to leave a positive mark on the larger dance community, Sue and Paul conceived and introduced through their daughter's studio "The Dance Button Project" -- a program that promoted goodwill among dancers by encouraging them to award "Awesome Dancer" buttons to dancers from other dance studios.  Within two years more than 2,500 "Awesome Dancer" buttons had been handed out one button at a time to dancers across the United States, Canada and Australia.

Finally, recognizing that there were thousands of other dance parents around the country who share many common experiences and challenges, they developed and launched DanceMom.com in late 2003 as their contribution to their fellow dance parents everywhere.  It took a week for the first dance mom to even find the site and nearly two months for registration to reach one dozen members, but by 2007 the DanceMom.com community comprised more than 1,000 registered members across the U.S. and Canada and beyond, and that year alone recorded over two million page views.  Sue and Paul continue to develop much of the site's original content while soliciting and publishing articles from other dance parents and dance sources, making DanceMom.com a collaborative creation of the dance parents, by the dance parents and for the dance parents everywhere.

DanceMom.com is visited primarily by dance moms, dance teachers, studio owners, a few brave dance dads and occasionally by dancers.  The site is advertiser-supported.  To maintain the balance of interests between readers and advertisers, one advertiser per page is showcased on the discussion board in a visible but non-intrusive manner, while commercial and promotional posts within the discussion board are prohibited.  The site has no affiliation with and makes no recommendation of any dance studio, competition, product or service.  Items available through The DanceMom.com Shop are unique creations.

All polls conducted on DanceMom.com represent the views of DanceMom.com readers, are independent of advertiser influence and do not necessarily represent the views of the site managers.  All views expressed on the DanceMom.com discussion board are those of the individual member making each post and do not represent the views of the site managers.  Discussion board entries authored by the site managers are posted under the user name "DanceMom" and carry the signature line "DanceMom.com Web Site Administrators."

By the way, DanceMom.com has absolutely no affiliation with the television program of a similar name.