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Iowa voter asked Donald Trump how he'd help make childcare more affordable for struggling families. Trump said it was cheap for businesses to provide facilities themselves, citing in great detail programs he provides for his own employees, adorably named " trump="true" kids"="true" and="true" "trumpeteers."

Last month, the Associated Press investigated Trump's claims , and it turns out he was lying. The programs he described are for guests at his clubs and hotels – not his employees. The AP couldn't find a single example of onsite childcare for employees at any of Trump's properties. "If they have child care, they should at least tell us," a housekeeper at a Trump hotel said.

The ease with which Trump told this lie, his ability to simply invent childcare facilities that do not exist for his employees, tells you almost everything you need to know about the maternity leave and childcare policies Trump introduced Tuesday night .

For starters, Donald Trump didn't actually announce a new maternity leave plan. You may be confused by multiple headlines declaring he did. Trump did, standing with his daughter Ivanka, announce a proposal for new mothers he'd try to pass as president: six weeks of access to unemployment benefits. Given the current federal policy of zero weeks of paid parental leave, Trump's policy would be a minor improvement (and a departure from typical Republican ideology). New mothers would get some money for time off.

But it's not paid leave, at least not fully paid for the vast majority of those who would take it. Unemployment insurance doesn't usually pay you what you've been making; in most states it's just a fraction, with caps on what you can earn every week . So women taking time off with new children will have six weeks of some income, but not full pay.

What's most glaringly odd about Trump's proposal , of course, is that in the year 2016, he is offering maternity leave. Only mothers can apply for the unemployment insurance. Fathers are left out completely. But it isn't just us heteronormative dads who aren't covered. His plan makes no mention of LGBT relationships. Two dads adopting a kid? No leave for you. (In fact, the maternity leave policy doesn't mention adoptive parents at all.) If a newborn has two moms, are they both eligible for unemployment insurance? What if, god forbid, a mother dies in childbirth? Can a single dad apply for leave to take care of his newborn child, or does his gender mean he's out of luck? (Needless to say, the Republican nominee's plan doesn't address questions of transgender or nonbinary parents.)

In Trump's proposal, it's women who take care of the children, because in Donald Trump's world, it has always been women who took care of his children. He's had five kids by three wives, yet bragged that he doesn't change diapers and that his entire parental responsibility comes down to writing checks .

Trump has no idea what it's like for most parents. He doesn't know what it's like to put in the time or the effort. He can't imagine what it means to be exhausted and have a child screaming for attention and not be able to hand him off to his current wife or the help. Trump has always had someone to hand his kids off to.

His plan applies to the only sort of family he can imagine, one where a woman bears the entire brunt of parenting responsibilities and the man does whatever it was Trump himself did when there was a baby around. And it's no surprise his narrow focus on mothers is bad for women.

By focusing solely on the mother, his policy encourages fathers to return to work sooner, forcing women to take on the bulk of childcare duties. It would keep women away from work longer than men, meaning they're more likely to fall behind in their professional careers. And most devastating, it would provide a powerful incentive for employers to hire and promote men over women. Under his plan, women are entitled to paid time off that men don't get – so why not hire the man who has to come right back to work to make ends meet? Women have always faced discrimination in the workplace based on the mere prospect of pregnancy; Trump's policy could make things worse.

Things don't get much better for you once your horrible rugrat is ready for daycare. If you aren't a real estate developer and reality TV star who claims to be worth billions of dollars, child care expenses can consume a hideous part of your income. Trump wants to make those expenses tax deductible, which sounds like a boon. And it would be for well-off families who spend a lot on childcare but still make enough to pay a lot in taxes.

But Trump's tax deduction would replace the current tax credit, which means low-income families who don't pay much (or nothing) in income taxes would lose out. (Trump would boost the earned-income tax credit for some to make up for this, but the current child care credit would go from a maximum $2,100 to an EITC of up to $1,200 -- a 43 percent drop.)

Trump claimed in his speech Tuesday Hillary Clinton doesn't have a plan for child care, but the fact checkers were swift with the debunking – she's had detailed plans for months, and they're easily superior to Trump's. Her plan for family leave – family, not maternity – offers 12 weeks of paid leave for parents of newborn or newly adopted children, no matter what your family looks like. (It covers illness, too.) Her plan for child care, which the Washington Post said had "enormous ambition," is centered around a proposal to cap child care costs at 10 percent of a family's income. That means child care could no longer be a painful drain on a family's income.

Trump's anemic proposals are a reflection of both his political and personal priorities. His adult children may lavish him with praise in front of the camera, but it's clear he's never been a parent in the way the vast majority of us who have children understand the word. A man who can sit on a stage and tell a bald-faced lie about providing his own employees with daycare facilities isn't someone you can trust to understand the needs of struggling families. Trump's plans aren't what American families need – and for a lot of parents, they could put them even further behind.

Election Day is Nov. 8. If you haven't registered to vote yet, you can do so here.

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