Brooklyn mother deserts unwanted daughters, 3 and 5, on sidewalk, drives off (Udpate)

posted at 12:47 pm on January 30, 2012 by Howard Portnoy

UPDATE: In case anyone was beginning to feel sympathy toward this mother, reasoning that she may have been a beleaguered soul acting out of desperation, new information courtesy of the Daily Mail should help clear away the emotional cobwebs. The report reveals that just prior to abandoning her daughters, Dalisha Adams was overheard by a neighbor shouting at the children, “Stop crying, shut the f*** up. I’m gonna get you out of here.” The article further reveals that after deserting the girls, Adams went home and busied herself with uploading “a photograph of a seemingly naked man holding a bottle of champagne” to her Facebook page. Sounds like she was moving on to the next chapter of her life.

* * *

What do you do if you’re a parent and your children become just too much to handle? One Brooklyn mother came up with an ingenious idea. She bundled up her two young daughters in their winter coats and deposited them on a street corner, evidently hoping that some passerby desirous of owning a couple of kids would take them home and feed them each a saucer of milk.

Before you come down hard on the mom, Dalisha Adams, 26, you should have all the facts at your disposal. According to the New York Daily News, Adams had the presence of mind to give the girls a starter supply of unsoiled disposable diapers, so their new owner would be prepared. Also give her some credit for leaving the children on a busy sidewalk. She could have dropped them off in the woods.

One of the two girls—named Domini and Dioni, ages 5 and 3 respectively—told the Daily News, “Mommy just left us on the sidewalk and drove away.”

Luckily, the first person to notice the children was good Samaritan Michelle Davis, who is quoted as saying:

They were wandering up and down the sidewalk for a while, just playing by themselves.

It’s horrible. How could you leave your own children out there? They’re babies and you just leave them out there like that?

Davis notified police, who took the sisters to an area hospital as a precaution. Then cops went to work finding the parent who abandoned them.

Domini told police that she lived “in a blue house with flowers in front,” that she believed the house was on 53rd Street, that her mother’s name Dalisha, and that she drove a white car.

It took some time, but police ultimately found Dalisha Adams—and promptly arrested her. She has been charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. The girls, meanwhile, are in the temporary custody of Children’s Services.

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Betcha she still cashed da welfare check and ate the government cheese allotted to the little girls.

NoDonkey on January 30, 2012 at 1:27 PM

Oh yeah and bring back orphanages.

It takes a village you see.

NoDonkey on January 30, 2012 at 1:28 PM

I cannot imagine. It is hard enough for me to let my baby cry when she is acting out for no reason. To just abandon a child on the street? I guess I must be a racist, cause, I pretty much knew what color the children would be… Somnehow, I think that still makes me about infintely better person than the mother.

astonerii on January 30, 2012 at 1:39 PM

Dems:
What’s the problem?
What do you expect after this poor ~~Dem base voter~~ “mom” has been punished with two children?

She/they/we would be so much better off if she’d just aborted them to fulfill her dreams.

Or something.

VelvetElvis on January 30, 2012 at 1:45 PM

Well, at least they weren’t aborted./ Has she no family to give them to? Or a neighbor? That feeling of abandonment will probably never go away. Poor kids.

chickie on January 30, 2012 at 1:45 PM

So da sista found herself a new pimp…errr…er I mean a boyfriend huhh ?
Kids are such an inconvenience, even if they are the primary mealtickets for an adult !!

burrata on January 30, 2012 at 1:46 PM

Yet another unforeseen consequence of giving one’s children unique names like “Dalisha” – when they inevitably grow up to become fugitives from justice, it’s a lot easier for the cops to track them down. If little Domini had said her mother’s name was “Susan” or “Nancy”, it would have been much harder to find her. A bit of prior planning would have saved Dalisha a lot of trouble later.
-
Kudos to that poor baby for remembering her mother’s name at all, though – my daughter at that age would have said my name was “Mommy”! Of course, she didn’t have such a pressing need to learn my legal name, as she had no reason to suspect that I would just push her out of the car and drive off, one day.

littlemary on January 30, 2012 at 1:49 PM

I smell mental illness.

John the Libertarian on January 30, 2012 at 2:04 PM

VelvetElvis on January 30, 2012 at 1:45 PM

Ah, ya beat me to it, my first thought was for the poor mother “punished” with children/sarc off.

waterytart on January 30, 2012 at 2:29 PM

Forced sterilization of the mother and a ban on ever being a parent/guardian for the rest of her life.

Problem solved.

Why is it so hard for America to figure out that some people shouldn’t be parents and make sure that children are not endangered.

“It wouldn’t be fair.”

/every Democrat in the country

majordomomojo on January 30, 2012 at 2:30 PM

To depressing for snark.

I thought I was having a bad day with a busted, and leaking, water heater.

cozmo on January 30, 2012 at 2:57 PM

Clearly this is George Bush’s fault.

olesparkie on January 30, 2012 at 2:57 PM

Obviously this mother was spiraling down to be that desperate to do something so despicable as abandoning her children in the middle of the winter on a street corner. Thank goodness they were not kidnapped by a predator before that lady helped them.

This is where we are failing as a society. “Back in the day”, neighbors would have noticed when a mother was struggling and tried to help. “Back in the day”, we had 2 parent families, for the most part, and extended families nearby to help the divorced moms.

It comes down to needing to promote marriage and 2 parent households. Whenever conservatives suggest this, they are excoriated by the press as bigots and homophobes. No one seems to care about the best interests of the children.

karenhasfreedom on January 30, 2012 at 3:00 PM

Sorry, but that is not a ‘mother’. What ya wanna bet those babies will be back with this woman in the near future?

plumorchard on January 30, 2012 at 3:05 PM

No one else noticed the tagline on the photo:
Domini and Dioni were left with extra diapers when their mom abandoned them.

Later the story notes the children are aged 3 and 5. A little old for diapers, ya think?

Good parenting all around.

Joe Mama on January 30, 2012 at 3:16 PM

No one else noticed the tagline on the photo:
Domini and Dioni were left with extra diapers when their mom abandoned them.

Later the story notes the children are aged 3 and 5. A little old for diapers, ya think?

Good parenting all around.

Joe Mama on January 30, 2012 at 3:16 PM

5 is definitely too old for diapers. 3 is not unreasonable, depending on the development of the child. There are plenty of 3-year-olds who are still struggling with potty training, and that’s perfectly developmentally appropriate.

Shump on January 30, 2012 at 4:12 PM

BTW, the actual article states that the girls are 3 and 2, not 5 and 3.

Shump on January 30, 2012 at 4:15 PM

My little boy was in kindergarten by the time he stopped needing diapers. Then again, he was developmentally delayed. As much as I have struggled with that boy, I’d never think of abandoning him.

Sekhmet on January 30, 2012 at 4:23 PM

BTW, the actual article states that the girls are 3 and 2, not 5 and 3.

Actually, the Daily News has it both ways. In a subhead, they give the ages at 5 and 3, then 3 and 2 in the body. The Daily Mail has it as 3 and 5.

Take your pick.

Howard Portnoy on January 30, 2012 at 4:33 PM

I thought there must be more to the story — that maybe mom was in a desperate situation, because nobody would do something that heinous on a whim, would they? So I went looking and didn’t have to look far. Apparently that mom’s a real piece of work:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn-mom-dalisha-adams-charged-abandoning-daughters-street-article-1.1014040

Mary in LA on January 30, 2012 at 5:20 PM

I can’t believe the RAAACCCISM on this board. Next you’re going to tell me that it’s not George Bush’s fault that Dalisha doesn’t have enough money to take care of her kids.

Gladtobehere on January 30, 2012 at 7:19 PM

Why is it so hard for America to figure out that some people shouldn’t be parents and make sure that children are not endangered.

“It wouldn’t be fair.”

/every Democrat in the country

majordomomojo on January 30, 2012 at 2:30 PM

Enforcement issues, mostly. You’d need another division of the armed forces to deal with all the unfit parents, even if your definitions of same were seriously lax. Also there’s the little problem of how to restrict that power.

To just abandon a child on the street? I guess I must be a racist, cause, I pretty much knew what color the children would be…

astonerii on January 30, 2012 at 1:39 PM

Then that makes two of us. I guess we can just be racist together. 8-\

A while back when my state enacted a “safe haven” law, we had a ‘mother’ use a loophole to turn in everyone from her littlest child to the teenagers. Three guesses what color she was. It made statewide news and prompted an emergency session of our legislature.

MelonCollie on January 31, 2012 at 8:23 AM

Want to bet she gets out of jail in time to vote for Obama?

TheClearRiver on January 31, 2012 at 6:49 PM