why can't you drop it off if it's older than a month? what if I want to drop off my 4-year-old
this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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Yeah, and what's the latest I can pick them up? 11:00?
Nebraska had no age limit, and people were driving tens of hours to drop 15/16 year olds off. Which the state didn't have enough resources to handle.
that's completely fucked actually
TIL the US has free child care.
Where did you think firemen come from?
Toddlers are perfect for getting in all the small fiery caverns which the grown firemen can't fit into.
From what height am I allowed to drop off my child?
/s
But, but I don't even have a baby.
Drop by a fire station, you might be able to pick one up!
But aren't fire stations kind of heavy?
Ah, the ol' lemmy switcheroo!
As a person who was dropped off somewhere as a baby, I completely love this, this can help many babies live a full filling life tbh.
Most based source in the thread 💯
Thank you for sharing you’re experience 🙏
Reasonable. Now who's gonna bet that some dip shit in Washington makes it illegal because "mothers should face the consequences of their decisions" or some bullshit.
Call me a cynical old bitch but when the US does something reasonable I always think "how they gonna fuck it up this time?"
Reasonable for the mother. The baby is rolling the dice.
Healthy babies are in high demand for adoption, so the odds are good, but not perfect, and its a terrible system to get stuck in, at least in my state.
Healthy babies are in high demand
Healthy white babies are in high demand.
True, if you aren't white, the decision is gonna be a lot harder.
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Can you drop off your baby, once a month, for a couple of hours on a date night?
Nah, I was thinking something along the lines of the Right saying that Young mothers are abandoning their kids because "they're selfish" or "they are avoiding responsibility" so some state passes a law that states that abandoned kids get DNA tested and traced back to their mothers so they can be forced to raise kids they can't afford/can't raise "to protect the family".
The US has a track record of fucking over women and girls, what with their war against contraception, abortion, adequate child care, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if the next move is "stop women giving kids up for adoption" under the guise of "protecting the family" or "personal responsibility" or some shit, but in reality is just a way to create cheap labour from underpaid women with a mouth to feed.
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Nebraska had no age limit for a bit. Guy dropped off 9 of his 10 kids(1 was 18) cause he felt overwhelmed after his wife died a year earlier.
"I think there's a misperception that we just inadvertently left an age cap out. But the reality was we wanted to save lives of older kids who might be at risk," said Amanda McGill Johnson, a Nebraska state senator at the time.
That actually kind of makes sense? I mean, dropping off teens is excessive, but maybe it highlights an issue? Overwhelmed parents of teenagers isn't something I had on my list of people that need more help, at least.
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10 kids jfc
I'm more concerned how he had ten kids and then felt overwhelmed when his wife left him. Like what the fuck?!
Grieving for a partner definitely doesn't make it easier to raise your children?!
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There is something similar called "baby hatch" in Germany, but those are usually located at hospitals. Why the fire station? It makes no sense to me.
In many states fire service is also emergency medical service.
Fire stations are everywhere, staffed by trustworthy people, who inevitably also have medical training. Additionally they aren't scary like the police are.
They're the people you call if you need help.
You can surrender an infant at a hospital too, as well as a police station, but fire stations are just more frequent.
Fire stations are public utilities owned by local governments. Also, hospitals are regularly visited by people, whereas fire stations are more private as they mainly send out and return from dispatches.
Fire stations are more anonymous, however you can give up rights to your child at Fire Stations, Police Stations, and Hospitals (far as we know) there are even some numbers and child protection will pick them up. Reason is because they rather take the child safely than deal with well.. yk
Hospitals in the US are kind of scattered, largely as a result of private equity tomfoolery. A lot of communities don't have one nearby. But pretty much every community has at least a volunteer fire station, and I believe all firefighters are required to be trained in at least first aid, if not be fully-qualified EMTs.
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It doesn't have to be fire stations. But they are commonly used for a few good reasons.
They're relatively ubiquitous. It shouldn't be hard for someone to locate a fire station. They're almost always staffed 24/7. They're trained on basic first aid. Quite often, they'll even have medics on staff.
Very importantly, though, they don't have a lot of people coming in and out of them. One of the big benefits of this program is that there are zero questions asked and it's as anonymous as you wish. The people who use these are often afraid they'll be judged as a failure. The lockboxes have a built-in time delay so you can leave before the station is alerted.
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A while back I fell into the rabbit hole of people dropping off the baby without informing the other parent. turns out it's really hard to get the kid back
Omg, that is insane! Imagine coming home from work like
“Honey, I dropped the baby off at the fire station today and the fireman yelled ‘BACK BACK NO TRADE BACK’ when I handed it over, so I’m pretty sure the decision is final. I hope you weren’t too attached to the babe.”
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What about Puerto Rico?
read the page
it says that all states, dc, and puerto rico
Yeah, I didn't read the page, just the title.
Most fire stations in the US have at least one person trained as a paramedic/EMT and in many places all of them have at least some medical training. Because in a lot of places fire trucks arrive, there's people who need immediate medical help.
So they have the basic skills to keep a newborn baby alive until they can get it to a hospital. And if it's older and healthy, they can just play with it and feed it and clean it as needed until Child Services arrives or it grows up and joins the crew.
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