Our society's constructions, systems, and institutions create media which perpetuate inaccurate representations of something every human endures: childhood. Abuse of children is often stigmatized and kept out of public conversation and media, creating a false, misleading, and ultimately, harmful view of childhood. Abuse in childhood often results in long-term impacts on mental health, and attempting to ignore these aspects of childhood only prevents survivors from getting the help and healing that they need.

​

With this piece, I have applied these ideas to the “tip of the iceberg” metaphor. What the media and society portray as childhood is only the tip of the iceberg. In reality, there are much larger and darker aspects of childhood which are being kept “under water.”