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Basic Trope: An unwanted baby is placed on a doorstep for the occupants of the house to raise.

  • Straight: Bob's mother leaves him at the doorsteps of his aunt and uncle's home.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Babies are piled on the doorstep, resulting in a Wave of Babies when the door is opened.
    • Every doorstep in the neighborhood has an abandoned baby on it, and no one thinks that anything is out of the ordinary.
  • Downplayed: The new parents of Bob know they'll be adopting a baby and greet his mother or a social worker at the door with Bob.
  • Justified:
    • Bob's parents can't afford a baby, and there is no orphanage in town.
    • Same as above, except the parents simply don't want a baby.
    • Bob's parents are on death's door; It's only a matter of time before they pass, and they don't want little Bob to live life without parents.
  • Inverted:
    • Bob is an adult and can no longer take care of his aging mother, so he leaves her on someone's doorstep.
    • A mother leaves the baby on her own doorstep, in hopes that someone else will take it.
    • Someone goes door to door asking for unwanted children.
    • Becky needs help getting pregnant, so she sits herself down on the nearest doorstep and waits.
  • Subverted:
    • Bob's mother leaves him at the doorsteps of his aunt and uncle's home...before they arrive back home, Bob is stolen by a thief.
    • The doorstep is a church or orphanage and it is understood in that town that babies left there have been surrendered for adoption.
  • Double Subverted:
    • The thief changes his mind and leaves Bob on another doorstep.
    • But then another baby is left at the door of a house.
  • Parodied:
    • The kindly parents take the infant in. The next day, a dozen more babies of different species are waiting for them on the doorstep.
    • Bob's parents celebrate "National Baby-Swapping Day": they leave Bob on another couple's doorstep, and the other couple gives their baby to Bob's parents in the same way.
  • Zig Zagged: The baby is sick, but is healed, but gets sick again when it isn't on the doorstep, and gets thrown out for being too much of a hassle, whereupon it gets sick again.
  • Averted: No babies are left on doorsteps.
  • Enforced: "If they just find the baby in the open, they may assume it's just lost. If the baby's on the doorstep, people will understand it was left for them to find."
  • Lampshaded: "What the? I don't remember placing a baby on my doorstep. Someone must have left it here."
  • Invoked:
    • A desperate, infertile couple puts a sign up on their door requesting foundlings.
    • The father kidnaps the baby and places him on the doorstep.
  • Exploited: Someone who wants to adopt a child attempts to encourage people to abandon babies on their doorstep, not someone else's.
  • Defied:
    • The mother abandons the child where she knows it will not be discovered.
    • The baby is put up for adoption the normal way.
    • The mother knocks on the door, and hands the baby directly to the couple.
  • Discussed: "Anything on the doorstep this morning? Milk? Newspaper? Baby?"
  • Conversed: "Why do so many babies get abandoned on this show?" "I guess it's better than killing them."
  • Deconstructed: The baby is very sick and malnourished.
  • Reconstructed: The baby is reared back to health.
  • Played For Laughs: The first house has a sign on the door which reads "no babies please". The mother has to stop by twelve more houses before finding one without such a sign.
  • Played For Drama:
    • The baby dies of exposure.
    • The owners of the house raise the baby as a Sex Slave.

Please, kind sir, won't you take this child back with you to Doorstop Baby?

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