Carol’s Column

Mammoth mother strikes again

The mammoth glared at me. Its tusks curved menacingly, eyes scowling, he was a terrifying beast, I thought.

"Aw, Maw, his tail looks like a cloud and his hair looks like Aunty Marion's when she comes out of the pool."

I looked again. She was right. Somewhere along the line, one tusk had lost its curl. In fact, the mammoth's right, back leg was distinctly shorter than the other three. It was a lopsided mammoth.

I curled the tusk slightly. "There, do you think Mrs Watling will like it?" I asked anxiously.

Nicky shrugged and her little nine-year-old shoulders drooped. Feelings of guilt washed over me like a winter rainstorm.

I was a failure. I was the worst mammoth mother in the country.

Filled with gloom, I poured myself a health yoghurt, laced it with a little life-sustaining brandy and phoned Betty.

The line was engaged. It happens when you have teenage daughters. Six hours later, I managed to get through.

"Sorry, Ma's busy," said Gaby. "She's stuck in the small intestine and she can't come to the phone."

Had I heard correctly? "The small intestine?"

"Yes," said Gaby nonchalantly. "She's doing the reproductive system of the long-haired rat and she's got her tubes confused. Somewhere along the line she found the digestive system and she reckons that's where all the action is."

Teenagers are so knowledgeable these days, I thought to myself. When I was young — 35 or so — I didn't know one end of a reproductive system from another. I knew that babies came in two sexes and three sizes from the bottom shelf in a supermarket.

"Give her a message," I said to Gaby. "Tell her I'm desperate."

Gaby returned to the phone. "She says she sympathises but she really can't leave the rat. David has to have his project in tomorrow morning and Mrs Kornball gave her such a low mark for the last project on fat bats, that she just can't stop for a second."

I nodded commiseratingly. "Gaby, I understand."

There's no doubt that school projects are a national problem.

Only yesterday Marion phoned to say goodbye.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"To Turkey."

"Turkey?"

Marion giggled. "Cindy needed information for a project on Turkey and I begged the travel agent for brochures, pictures, posters, booklets — in fact anything at all that she had on Turkey. She eventually gave it to me after I'd bought tickets for a trip to Turkey."

Of course, multiple-children mothers are at a tremendous disadvantage.

They can find themselves doing projects on four different things at the same time.

Why, only this week I had the heart, the Russian Revolution, common diseases and mammoths.

Being a great believer in the art of show and tell, I tried to acquire a heart. It's not easy, most of those still beating are attached to somebody.

And as for revolutions.

"Ma, Madame Defarge was in the French Revolution," complained Barry after I'd already written a page.

"Barry, don't be ridiculous. So what. One revolution's the same as another. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. French? Russian? Does it matter? Since when has your history master been so fussy?"

Every now and again, a mother has to make a stand. This whole problem of projects is exhausting.

Right now there are probably 7 000 000 mothers throughout South Africa researching projects on anything from the splayed feet of the Yeti to the esoteric relationship of Lawrence of Arabia to his white stallion.

It really is too much.

Yesterday my husband spoke to me. He was lucky, he caught me at a free moment — I'd run out of glue to stick up the pictures of wailing asteroids.

"Why don't the kids do their own projects?" he asked.

I was shocked.

"Projects aren't for children. They're busy learning calculus and metaphysics. No, projects are for mothers. Dammit. Why does my mammoth look like a grizzly bear? Do you think Mrs Watling will notice if I give it an extra tusk to cover the place where I splotched the ink?"

It takes a special talent to be a good mammoth mother. Some of us have it.

Others, like me, struggle on regardless.

PS. We have no choice.

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