Fellow Lactneters, I thought that I would let you know of an experince that I had last week. I was in the final stages of getting my business off and running, but had to get back on the Hamster wheel to get all of the proper licenses and regulatory numbers filed with the governmental agencies in my city, parish (county), state, and federal. I went to the state building to get my state sales tax number. Not being familiar with the building, I asked a worker if I was in the correct area. She asked me what type of business I was starting, I told her that it was a Lactation Consulting business, she asked me what that was... I told her that when mothers were having difficulty breastfeeding their babies, they could call me and I would help. I was so surprised by what happened next... She started to laugh and ridicule my business, then she started announcing to other workers what she just heard, and I could hear in their tone that they just couldn't beleive that someone would be so silly to start a business like that. As I was sitting there, hearing them cackle about this, I was looking at the "suggestion" box, and wondered where I could get a form to fill out to let their bosses know of their inapproprate behavior. Before I could find one, I was called back to the desk to start the procedure. This woman also chuckled about what the business objective was, which put me even more on the defensive. I just clammed up and let her talk... (My mom always told me to keep my mouth shut if I didn't have anything nice to say! until I could reply calmly). She went on to say how she "tried that" (bf), but it "hurt" too much, and she wasn't going to go through that much pain every few hours. I empathised with her, and told her that I was sorry that there wasn't anyone there to help her with her breastfeeding, that she shouldn't have fell through the cracks. When I told her that it shouldn't hurt, she looked amazed. I went on with a thought I remembered from Lactnet... "Our species would have died off long ago if bf hurt". And that in todays society, when our mothers, aunts, and friends didn't bf, we have no one to ask questions or even observe, and that women sometimes need help, and that was what I was going to do. She then started asking the first worker about bf her child, she too stopped for some simple reason. I explained how a LC could have helped her too, and that I was sorry that society failed her. I couldn't believe that by the end of the process, I had 3 women who were wishing me well on my new adventure in the business world! So... there it goes, I learned that sometimes you just need to keep your mouth shut for a while, and others will see value in areas where they never would have if I had been defensive or rude. Brenda Dalton RNC IBCLC Lactation Resource Center NW Louisiana *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html