"There Is Nothing You Can Do To Stop Me Making My Own Little Communists At Home"

Iowa classroom camera bill generates intense backlash

An Iowa bill that would put cameras in classrooms made one Des Moines mother so angry she wrote to the Republican state legislator who introduced it to inform him she’d redouble her efforts to indoctrinate her children to communism. 

Natalie Harwood wrote to Rep. Norlin Mommsen on February 3, telling the Iowa state lawmaker that she intends to take action in response to legislation aimed to be “intimidating to public school teachers.”

“Every time I see a bill like this proposed, I go home and read my own kids another chapter of Das Kapital and tell them to tell all their friends about the evils of capitalism and the power of the collective worker,” Harwood wrote. “I also slip another copy of the ‘Essential Works of Lenin’ into the little free library closest to your house in DeWitt.”

Harwood’s email is funny, and biting—and it speaks to the frustration parents around the country are feeling as right-wing lawmakers pass restrictive laws about what children can and can’t be taught. 

Photo: UVA