NY Mom kicks kids out of car and drives off.
 

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – Usually, it's an empty threat: "If you kids don't stop fighting, I'm going to stop this car right now and leave you here!" But a mother from an upper-crust New York suburb went through with it, ordering her battling 10- and 12-year-old daughters out of her car in White Plains' business district and driving off, police said Tuesday.

Madlyn Primoff, 45, a partner in a Manhattan law firm, pleaded not guilty Monday to a charge of endangering a child. A temporary order of protection was issued, barring her from contact with the children, who were physically unharmed.

Primoff's lawyer, Vincent Briccetti, would not comment Tuesday on details of the case. But he said, "Madlyn is a great mother connected with a great family, and she is grateful for the outpouring of support from friends and family."

There wasn't much support from strangers, however. Mothers interviewed near the scene said they couldn't imagine doing what Primoff did, though some understood the urge.

Iris Gorodess, 49, of Mahopac, who has four children ranging from 10 to 19 years old, said she sympathized with Primoff's actions, right up to the point where she pulled away.

"I used to pull over and make the kids change seats. Also, I make sure the kids have their iPods and their games. And I have a minivan, so they're not up my neck all the time.

"But I can't see pulling away. That has to be too scary for the children."

White Plains police said Primoff ordered the arguing girls out of the car Sunday evening as they were driving home. She left them at Post Road and South Broadway, an area of shops and offices 3 miles from their home, then drove off, the police report said.

The report does not say whether the girls had cell phones.

Police would not say if Primoff ever returned to look for the girls, but they said, without explaining how, that the 12-year-old eventually caught up with the mother. The 10-year-old was found by a "Good Samaritan" on the street, upset and emotional about losing her mother, police said.

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I was on her side right up until she didn't go back to pick them up....if she had just sat there for a few minutes and teasd like she was going to pull off or took a sloooooooow drive around the block...she would have been ok! :D

Haha - I could see my mom doing this. I could see her pulling off but I don't think she would have went far though...maybe just down the block a ways and pulling over or maybe just around the block.

She would have come back though. lol

She's a partner at Kaye Scholer (one of the top law firms in the country, if not the world); here's her bio: http://www.kayescholer.com/professionals/primoff_madlyn .

I'm sure her partners aren't happy about this kind of attention.

That's the first thing I looked for when I found out her name and firm. Those lawyer bios are often investigative gold!

Ok, glad I wasn't the only one who did that. Kaye Scholer is no joke and has a ridiculous client list, so I'll bet there was some sort of meeting with the managing partner or executive committee after this news broke.

Looking at her bio, I'd say she's probably under a ricockulous amount of stress right now. That doesn't excuse what she did, but it might explain.

Although she's probably gotten a lot of business lately - if you're having business issues right now, Kaye Scholer is one of the firms where you'll go, and from her resume I'm guessing she's got some of the bigger clients.

If she's kicking kids out of her car, I wonder what her associates are doing...

I agree with this. Especially seeing that she had a lot of stressors during the time. Not that it gives her the right to do so, but her mental state may have been clouded.

Kaye Scholer? wow, that is a great company

Wasn't this an episode of Desperate Housewives a few years ago?

sounds like something my mom would've done if my sister and I had gotten out of control
lol

I may be evil, but the mom would get no problems from me! It seems like the kids needed to learn a lesson. The 12 year old caught up with the mom so it seems to me that she didnt go very far from where she left them. Since she called police looking for her daughter shortly after Police picked the daughter up seems like she was looking for her even before the police got her. There are crazy people everywhere, but they were 3 miles from home in a very well off neighborhood. I'm pretty shure the mother didnt fear for their safety.
Quite frankly were it my mom not only would she follow through with the threat she'd punish us both if one of us came back without the other. Sometimes you have to follow through with the threats you make or your words become meaningless. I'll bet next time they're in the car and she tells them to shut it or get put out they'll shut up!

What lesson have they learned, really?

According to other news sources, she called her town's police from HOME and reported the 10 year-old missing. The 12 year-old ran and caught up to the car. The fact that she managed to get the other kid, GO HOME, and then call the police is beyond the pale.

I'm going to admit it :o my dad did this to me when I was very little. But I'd like to point out A) He didn't go very far, just drove away slowly and I could still see him, B) I knew how to get home since I was around the corner from the house (I was still crying terrified though!), and C) I NEVER acted up in the car again (although I don't remember what it was I was doing in the first place-and my mom honestly says I was an angel, especially compared to kids nowadays).

Sometimes when I hear stories like this I feel bad for the parents. There is only so much anyone can take, even if they are supposed to be the "grown up". Where she failed was when the other one got lost and the police had to get involved.

I hope the other daughter getting "lost" taught her a lesson. While I'm not a mother and I've never gone through the stresses of taking care of a child, I could NEVER see leaving a child somewhere. Those of you saying that it was done to you (though not as extreme) when you were younger... our world was a different place back then, when we could play in the street or go down to the park unsupervised and not having to worry about someone taking us.

Well-off neighborhood or not, you just can't chance something like this. Imagine if that good samaritan was someone who was up to no good and took that little girl. What kind of lesson is learned there?

I'm sorry I am still kind of laughing at this:


The report does not say whether the girls had cell phones.

It's definitely not the worst thing anybody has done to their kids. It's pretty mild, actually. These were 10 and 12 year olds, not 3 and 4 year olds. At 12, you're in 6th or 7th grade and old enough to know you should shut up when you're mom is getting to the end of her rope. At 12, you hang out at the mall with your friends, go to the movies without parents accompanying, come home to an empty house every day after school. 12 is old enough to babysit other kids. 10 is kind of young, but still old enough to know that you should shut up when your mom is near the end of her rope.

I would do this, and I would start to drive away, but then stop and make them get back in the car. I often threaten that I'm going to split the kids up so that when one is with me, the other is with dad and vice versa. That freaks them out and makes them behave for a while. I surely don't think that this one incident would warrant on contact with your kids, especially since I've seen kids who were getting the hell beaten out of them regularly have to stay in the home.

And yes, I'd wager that both girls own cell phones whether they had them with them at the time or not.

They should have learned to listen to their mother and know that she's not all talk and no action. They should realize that they are lucky to have a parent who is caring and behaving themselves is not much for their mom to ask in return.

Also, they lived like 3 miles from where the kids were let out. Driving the mom could get home in 3-5 minutes. My guess is that the mom expected both of them to catch up to her together and when they didnt she was alarmed. She may have gone back to the drop off spot to check or not. It makes sense to go home and call the cops if you live 3-5 minutes away and your kid is missing. You drop the 12 year old off at home call the cops and then proceed to search for the 10 year old.

Unfortunately, they've learned that their mother is a hothead who, when faced with the same squabbles that virtually every other parent on this planet faces, risked her children's well-being--and her own career, I might add, to prove a point.

Also, she dropped them off in downtown White Plains. Although it's a pretty well-off town, downtown White Plains is home to a lot of major businesses. There are all sorts of people out there during the day. Anyone could have been there to pick that kid up. How close they were to home isn't an issue either--just look at the high percentage of kids who are abducted and killed within blocks of their homes. She's lucky that someone with only the best intentions got to her daughter before a pedophile or other creep!

I find this hilarious. Bet they stop fighting next time. :p

Downtown White Plains? A 3-mile walk?

How could children ever recover from such a harrowing experience?

Also, I'm no child psychologist, but doesn't the "fake-leave" only reinforce in children that Mom's threats are hollow, kind of like the "fake-grounding" and the "fake-no dinner" moves that are widely panned?

You haven't met my parents....hehe.

I'm sorry but I applaude the mother. She was able to show her kids that she meant business.
With some of these children now a days, they have gotten everything or nearly everything that they want and they haven't learned how to value things, like getting a car ride home.
I remember having to walk home from school (1 mile) as well as walking to school when I ws 12 and 11 years old. I had to get to ballet class in the 4th and 5th grade by walking 1 mile to the bus stop, then going to class (around 5pm) and then catching the bus that would take me into Pasadena and wait for my mom to pick me up at the bus stop (around 6:30pm). Hell, at 12, believe me, that kid knew she was pissing off her mother, she knew that she needed to shut up and she knew that she needed to sit her ass down and calm herself down. No, what did she do, she continued to act a fool in the car, squabble with her sister, and drive her mother nuts.
How many times does the Mom have to tell you to shut the f$#%#@ $% up before you get it?
They don't allow the parents to actively discipline the children today and wonder why some children act silly. Then they give them the dx of Autism or ADHD or something else that could easily be solved with a good ass whipping. Sorry, I don't feel bad for this mother, I feel that she did what was right. She was giving the children what they did need, discipline.

If the mother had enforced what she said 8-10 years ago, she wouldn't have had the problems she has now. My mother (winner of the iron hand in the velvet glove award for several consecutive years) would not have done that, but she most certainly would have pulled the car over and demanded silence before continuing. These little darlings will probably need psychiatric care and/or try to emancipate themselves at any time now. :rolleyes:

Or better yet, told thenm before they went out the door, "Act like you got some dayum sense and don't embrrass me."

My mom is a certified spankologist

I just want to add that I live around the corner from her and our kids play together...This was a disgusting act, but her kids are baaaaaaaadddd!!!! Disrespectful and totally out of control!

Kids don't become "totally out of control" over night. Put the fear of Mom in them when they are little and you will be ok in the end. Ask lilnikki: all Mommy has to do is drop her voice, and things get done.

DS: my mom is a certified spankologist as well. :) :D Hence, why I've never been to jail or been put out of a car. B/c M. Butler WOULD do that. And drive off.

My mother was definetly a certified spankologist as well.
Honeychile, you are correct, the need for discipline began years ago. This mother should have KNOWN how to control her kids, but then that would have meant that she would have to pay attention to her children to begin with.

I'm not going to try to defend this woman's actions, but I think it's a bit judgmental for anyone who doesn't personally know her to accuse her of not paying attention to her kids.

Discipline
 

Discipline must begin right away in a loving way. It must happen immediately so a small child attaches consequences to his behavior. My mother had the "look". I would rather she had beaten me than to get that look that said, "I am so disappointed in you." I tried the look on my boys and they fell on the floor laughing!

Anyway, the disappearing mom put both her daughters in danger, even three miles from her home. Predators travel to nice neighborhoods all the time. She could have separated the girls, moving the older one to the front seat. She could have used a reward system for good behavior. Abandoning them will do nothing for the girls, except make them afraid of their weird mother.

That will be $.02!

Paula M
Sigma Delta Tau
Patrae Multi Spes Una
One hope of Many People

When my step team was driving back from a competition and the coach pulled over and put a girl out of the van. She was around 15 and was being a brat to the nth degree. The coach just drove around the block and came back and we all had a good laugh, but I'm sure I know what parents everywhere would say about putting a girl out on the street in an unfamiliar city at 10-something at night. I guess you can say I understand both sides. But that incident made me laugh and so does this one. :shrug:

So you can't leave 10 and 12 your year old kids in White Plains alone for any length of time or it's child endangerment?

That seems weird to me. I know that it's kind of normal for parents to be paranoid about their own kids these days, but I don't think there's really the criminal data to back it up. And my mom would probably have let me be alone for some length of time at that age, like in a you can look around at stuff and we'll meet back here in 30 minutes kind of way. Granted, she wouldn't have fake abandoned me from the car, but the charges don't seem to be a result of psychological abuse from the threat, but instead seem to reflect the idea that leaving a kid in White Plains business district is in itself illegal.

Weird.

During the southern cal wildfires of 2007, my kids and I were all home. We were lucky- our home was safe, and we were in no danger. I took my 2 boys out shopping, and my younger one aka, "Thing 2" was being a real jerk, answering back, etc on the drive home. He was 9 at the time. Well, a block from home, I let him out of the car, and told him to walk. He met me at home, less than 5 minutes later. He had run the whole way, and two people had offered him to get him help, thinking that he was running away from a fire! Thing 2 has not misbehaved in the car since, and I have not put him out of the car either!

I cannot remember a spanking since I was about 2-3 years old, but THE LOOK was alive and well in our house. We were asked, "What would you do if you had a child who acted like you?" and I would think, "I'd spank them real good!" I think the furtherest my parents had to go by the time we were in middle school was a very stiff squeeze on the shoulder.

If parents would just do their jobs before the kids enter school, they wouldn't be leaving them on the side on the road. So many teachers complain that more of their day is spent discipling their students rather than teaching them to NOT ignore them. I'm not saying to beat the kids (there's a place on the human body for swatting), but for everybody's sake, they need to learn discipline.

nikki1920, sounds like you have it all together with lilnikki - good work!

My kids are generally good kids. They were disciplined early on. Their teachers always talk about what nice kids they are. In middle school, they especially rave about my son being such a nice, polite boy as if those are a rare thing in middle school. They are good students, good kids. There are still times that they push MY buttons and I have to lay down the law. They're teenagers for crying out loud. They're siblings. They pick on each other and bicker. They bickered and picked at each other through my birthday dinner out with them. The same week, one of them texted me from their dad's house complaining about stuff the other one was doing. Then the other one texted me. I told them to tell their dad, since they were at his house. As far as I was concerned, this was his issue to deal with but it turned out he wasn't home. I called them, said to put me on speaker phone so they could both hear. I reamed them out for constantly picking on each other and told them to work it out because they were the only siblings they were ever going to have and I was sick of them acting like this. I really yelled, first time I had to in a long time. Even good kids have their moments of being total brats whose necks you want to wring.

It does seem ridiculous that it's child endangerment to leave two kids at ages 10 and 12 alone in a public place. At age 12, our kids all go to Cedar Point for an all day trip and are allowed to roam around on their own, checking in for lunch and a snack break occasionally. They're fine.

Yes, when she realized the two kids had separated, and the 10 year old was out there alone, she should have turned right around to get that one. But, it's not child endangerment, it's a lapse of judgment for a little bit. I think removing these kids from the home is an extreme measure.

There are a lot of situations where we, as parents, don't always make the best decision. We are human. There was an age with my son where I really struggled when we went places that didn't have "family" bathrooms. He was definitely too old to be going in the ladies room and I was really worried about sending him to a bathroom for men alone. When I had to go to the bathroom, I would worry while in there that he was standing outside the bathroom by himself. But, I made judgment calls, based on necessity. She made a poor judgment call this time, but she's hardly abusive or neglectful. Is it child endangerment when kids get dropped off at the movies? When they walk home from school? When they go to a park on their own? When they are outside riding their bikes? Seriously?

Has anyone asked the question of WHY the 12 year old left the 10 year old behind?

Not really. They're kids, siblings, who had just been kicked out of the car. I'm sure neither was excited at all about spending time with the other.

I wish the Goblin King really would take them away. Right now.

Mom had them doing a team building activity...and they failed.

When I was a kid if we were being slow getting ready, my mom would say she would leave us...she did once or twice, but she only went around the block to let us get the point! It worked!

Discipline
 

Many years ago, we were dining in a nice restaurant with our two sons who were about 12 and 10. They always behaved well in restaurants because they loved eating out and knew that the only way they could go the next time, was to behave this time.

There was a family sitting at the next table with two boys a little younger than ours. The boys were just terrible. They yelled and were so disruptive. Then they began running through the restaurant forcing the waiters carrying heavy trays laden with hot food to have to dodge them.

I could picture an incident where one of the waiters dropped his tray and burned one or both of the boys and I vowed that I would be a witness for the restaurant when the parents sued!

I gave the mother the "look" that my mother used to give me if I ever (rarely) misbehaved. Her reaction was to shrug her shoulders and grimace as though there was nothing she could do about her childrens' reprehensible behavior. It was not the fault of these poor kids. The inmates ran that asylum. I wonder what happened to them now that they are grown.

Parents do not their children any favors by bringing them into the world and then throwing them out into society for the rest of us to deal with. There is no owner's manual but there are books and parenting classes and friends and family if a parent doesn't know how to gain control of his or her child while there is still time to mold him or her into a civilized, productive member of society.

So "mommy dearest" is a high powered lawyer. Big deal. She is a total failure as a parent, the most important job she will ever have. How sad.

Paula M.
Sigma Delta Tau
Patrae Multi Spes Una
One Hope of Many People