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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that NCT clubs are only for smug and over competitive mums

74 replies

bee169 · 07/12/2012 18:24

There are some great groups in my local area where I have met loads of lovely mum's. However, I have found the NCT mums groups are full of really bitchy, extremely competitive mums. Can anyone else relate to this experience?? or AIBU??

OP posts:
MerylStrop · 07/12/2012 18:52

The NCT lot round here all very beta types

Luck of the draw innit?

wonkylegs · 07/12/2012 18:54

Our NCT group is lovely we have 2 parties a year - group birthday & Xmas, have nights out and coffee. Our kids are all 4 now & there are quite a few siblings now too. We are a mixture of people and I can say we are now genuinely friends, no smugness or one upmanship just support, friendship and quite a lot of laughs.
It means a lot to me as my career means I have a lot of male friends but not so many female ones.

YerMaw1989 · 07/12/2012 18:54

I had the opposite , I was 19 when I had my first, I bf for five months and lots of wealthy, mid thirties etc mums who hadn't even bothered were like :O and the assumption of young= FF pissed me off a lot.

toobreathless · 07/12/2012 18:55

I didn't do NCT as I didn't trust myself not to impale the teacher on a very sharp and pointy stick if she started spouting too much nonsense.

I did classes with an excellent IM and met 4 lovely ladies who are now amongst my closest friends.

Did try a couple of NCT meets and found them quite intimidating tbh, the other mums made me feel very young and slightly stupid at times (& I am 28 & a dr) Might have been more my issue than there though. I suspect a lot of it was due to my lack of confidence and some strong personalities.

whiteandyelloworchid · 07/12/2012 18:56

i was put off going to ntc as i was advised to go there as "you get a nicer class of person there"!

yuk

decided not to go there after that!

austenozzy · 07/12/2012 19:00

My wife and I went to nct antenatal classes, and we're friends with all of the 7 other couples almost two years later. In fact, we had the dads xmas dinner last night, followed by beers and pool in the pub! And we're all going to an open farm tomorrow followed by a nice lunch and secret santa.

No competitiveness or smugness or preachiness or any of that in our group at all. All the mums did things differently and there's been no snidey comments or anything like that. Can't speak for others though. Can't recommend it highly enough.

dexter73 · 07/12/2012 19:03

That's not my experience at all. I am going out for a meal tonight with some friends, 2 of which I did my NCT classes with about 16 years ago. They are very valued friends. No smugness or competitiveness, just friendship and a shoulder to cry on when needed.

Gillyweed001 · 07/12/2012 19:03

I'm an 'nct mum' and am neither smug nor competitive, and neither is the rest of my group. We have all said the best thing we got out of the classes was the support of each other. 3 out of 6 of the mums are bottle feeding, the other 3 (me included) are mixed feeding. We all had medical interventions in our births. Maybe you have just been unlucky with the groups you have met, but please don't lump us all in the same category. I know that at our weekly meet ups, we would love to meet more mums. More experience to share around! Smile

AnnaRack · 07/12/2012 19:05

Your experience chimes with mine op. My antenatal group all had bigger houses than me, clearly in a different league dinancially, all vv competitive and quite cliquey. I really didn't fit in the group at all. But the odd thing was, individually they were Ok. It's the luck of the draw I think. The nct in my opinion is overrated as a place to make friends, more useful for advice, info and of course the nearly new sales. Don't write them off entirely, they do a lot of good stuff.

3monkeys3 · 07/12/2012 19:05

YABU.

My NCT group was nice but a bit boring - we're vaguely still in touch but I wouldn't say we were all mates. We all had high intervention births and only 2 of us breast fed for any length of time. You can't generalise about any group of people based just on your own experience.

SomersetONeil · 07/12/2012 19:07

My group consisted of 2 single Mums, another (the one with the cut-glass accent, who happened to be Indian) who had an elective c-section under general anaesthetic - she was knocked out for the entire birth, to the apparent complete bemusement of her obstetrics team! A couple of other c-sections and an even split of B/feeders and F/feeders.

One of the group said her cousin had said the best way to get through labour was to work your way through a bottle of wine, so our instructor said that we were forever more going to be remembered as the Pinot Grigio group.

Our group was great craic. A complete mix of people.

MustStopOutingSelf · 07/12/2012 19:08

Never been to a meeting so can't really say.

It is strange though that the only three aquiantance NCT members I have come accross have judged me harshly for
A. FF both my babies after six weeks of hellish BF
B. Having my babies before I turn 30 (never mind the mortgage or the career or the hugely stable marriage, I just couldn't possibly be ready Hmm )

Penny2012 · 07/12/2012 19:10

Yes. I made four friends for life and we're all very down to earth.

toobreathless · 07/12/2012 19:11

No muststop THEY couldn't possibly be ready before 30, you clearly were :)

FirstTimeForEverything · 07/12/2012 19:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PoppyWearer · 07/12/2012 19:16

Not my experience at all, have done NCT twice and made some fantastic friends with whom I've had many open and very honest discussions comparing experiences with our babies, then toddlers, then school children.

Some drifted away due to circumstances and some are less close than others, but in fact my groups have "adopted" honorary members met in other ante- and post-natal groups and about as un-bitchy as it gets.

I can't be done with the fake competitiveness and feel lucky we didn't have that in my groups.

LaQueen · 07/12/2012 19:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AngryBeaver · 07/12/2012 19:23

I met two women in my NCT group that I know will be in my life forever.
I luff them and they luff me! I would say I was the odd one out in the group, one is a GP and one has a good job in PR. I am a SAHM.

They never made me feel as though they were better than me.
They are just two very nice women and we get on really well and have a great laugh together.
The NCT teacher on the other hand, was a cretin.
She also a lot of nonsense about pain relief. (inferring birth should be natural, and all drugs were baaad,m'kay?)
Unfortunately for her, one group member (as I mentioned) was a GP and her husband is an anaesthatist! He didn't come back after that session as he couldn't bear to hear her inaccuracies.
She also made one of our group feel awful for bottle feeding Xmas Angry
Studid woman.

piprabbit · 07/12/2012 19:23

The NCT classes are expensive (although they are flexible if you talk to them, especially if you are claiming benefits). The classes usually run over 8 weeks, 2 hours a week and the local branch will usually try really hard to encourage the group to stay in touch afterwards. Some classes have a 'buddy' (a volunteer mum who's baby is a few months old) who will arrange the initial social events until the group starts doing it's own thing. But you can't force a group to random strangers to be friends - so sometimes the groups just drift apart.

The clubs, parties and sales are usually very reasonably priced. And you don't need to have been to the classes or even be a member to attend. Put your postcode into to www.nct.org.uk to see what your local branch organise.

ReshapeWhileDashingThroTheSnow · 07/12/2012 19:28

Oh yaaawn. Another NCT-bashing thread. Hopelessly generalised, OP. BTW, they aren't 'clubs' - all NCT Bumps to Babies, Tums to Tinies, Baby Cafe (breastfeeding support) and other coffee-morning-type groups are open to all and almost always free (or voluntary donation). Find another one?

My experience has not been of exclusivity or over-competitive mums. You get them everywhere! Grin

PurpleTinsel · 07/12/2012 19:33

I didn't go to antenatal classes, so can't comment on them.

But I went to a local NCT Bumps and Babies group, until DS was too big for it, and most of the women there were fine. Some were bitchy and competitive, but most were perfectly normal and friendly. Pretty even split between BF and FF mums too.

I've also met bitchy and competitive women in other baby / toddler groups. It's just the luck of the draw.

So YABU to generalise about all NCT groups from one bad experience.

MadameCreeper · 07/12/2012 19:35

How many groups are going to? Xmas Grin

Notmadeofrib · 07/12/2012 19:37

well my group is great (still together years later), but we not exactly a cross section of society.

Wowserz129 · 07/12/2012 19:41

It's silly to act like every woman that goes to NCT is bitchy. You obviously just didn't get on with this one group. That's life!!

RubyrooUK · 07/12/2012 19:42

That wasn't my experience.

I couldn't do any free antenatal classes where I live as they only had limited places and were booked up.

So I did the NCT to meet people. I have always been a workaholic and was terrified of being lonely on maternity leave. Met a bunch of people from different walks of life who like me, were shit scared of having babies and had no clue what to do.

Didn't particularly rate the NCT instructor but the attendees were really relaxed and nice. We still meet up and talk about how we're now clueless about toddlers. Absolutely no-one bitches to my knowledge or is smug - everyone is pretty supportive. We mainly laugh at our parenting disasters.

I could probably have met the same people at other babies groups or classes (and we all did meet other people too) but it was nice to have a group of people to call on when I needed them.

So I think you were probably just unlucky, OP.