Image via MSNBC

In Trump’s world, only women take care of children

America can breathe a sigh of relief because at long last, Donald Trump has released his family leave plan. And it’s a great plan. The best plan. Except it’s not. It’s a completely fucking awful plan, insulting to parents and totally ignoring men in any and every circumstance, including same-sex couples who adopt.

We can be enraged, but is anyone really surprised at this point?

According to The Huffington Post, the man who once called pregnancy “an inconvenience” for an employer is now proposing a policy to give women time off for having a baby. Women being the operative word. Women who’ve given birth, that is. Because after all, it’s 1954, right? There’s only the one way to build a family!

Because in a Trumpian world, only women who pop a baby out of their lady garden deserve leave from their jobs to care for their child. In a Trumpian world, no one adopts. No gay couples have children either, through adoption or via surrogate. It’s honestly enough to make our heads spin that the possible future leader of the free world has such sexist and antiquated notions about how modern families work.

His policy proposal includes six weeks of paid leave for a woman who has given birth, along with tax credits for stay-at-home mothers. Not stay-at-home fathers, because what is this, 2016? Get outta here with that progressive garbage. Men smoke the cigars. Women do the child-rearing.

Trump’s ideas leave men out entirely, including gay couples, as confirmed by a spectacularly disastrous interview Ivanka Trump gave Cosmopolitan yesterday. As the token Trump Woman in the campaign, Ivanka is taking on the cause of women in the workplace. Because who would know better what the average American woman needs than a totally ridiculously privileged American woman who’s never once in her life had to worry about money?

From her privileged little perch, Ivanka thinks her father’s shit-ass plan is better than nothing. “This is a giant leap from where we are today, which is sadly, nothing. Both sides of the aisle have been unable to agree on this issue, so I think this takes huge advancement and obviously, for same-sex couples as well, there’s tremendous benefit here to enabling the mother to recover after childbirth. It’s critical for the health of the mother. It’s critical for bonding with the child, and that was a top focus of this plan.”

The mother. We get it. Men are garbage in the Trumpiverse when it comes to families and taking care of children. After all, it’s the molding turnip himself who’s famous for saying he doesn’t do diapers.

When asked if Trump’s plan would include gay couples where both partners are men, She-Trump says, “The policy is fleshed out online, so you can go see all the elements of it. But the original intention of the plan is to help mothers in recovery in the immediate aftermath of childbirth.”

Cosmo pressed further asking if it won’t cover two men having a child because they aren’t recovering from childbirth. Trump answered, “Well, those are your words, not mine. [Laughs.] Those are your words. The plan, right now, is focusing on mothers, whether they be in same-sex marriages or not.”

You can practically feel Ivanka’s careful, fembot facade crumbling from here. She’s short-circuiting, for sure.

As much fun as it is watching Ivanka combust, let’s get back to attacking our potential future Führer and the fact that in both his words and proposed policies, Trump undermines the role of men in raising children and their need for time to adjust to family life in the wake of a new baby. Their partners need them (whether they be male or female) and their infants need them, too — yet Trump stubbornly refuses to give them their due.

His policy is also damaging for women in the workplace. Only providing paid parental leave for mothers means employers may see women of child-bearing age as a potential burden when it comes to hiring. If you know a man can’t possibly get six weeks of paid leave for having a child, he’s automatically a more attractive hire, whether anyone wants to admit that or not. This also places more pressure on women to take on the role of primary caregiver because hello, their family could grab a tax credit under the Trump regime, unlike if daddy did the job.

Unreal.

And please keep in mind that this is all in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton’s parental leave policy that recognizes mothers, fathers and adoptive parents, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. Oh, and she’s proposing 12 weeks, not six. The choice is so maddeningly obvious, it’s hard to believe anyone wouldn’t vote for her at this point, but I digress.

We are at a precipice here, America. We have a real opportunity to elect someone who honestly cares about not just working mothers, but working parents. Someone who understands that in this modern world, both mothers and fathers share the work of rearing children.

Let’s not blow it.