‘The overwhelm of new motherhood helped’ — Psychiatrist and author Saumya Dave on the idea for her novel The Guilt Pill

Author and psychiatrist Dr Saumya Dave wrote a book about ‘mom guilt’ after realising she never heard the term ‘dad guilt’ — neither in her practice nor in conversations with peers. “When I was pregnant and then gave birth to our first child, so many different friends who were parents said, ‘I would tell you to go take time for yourself, or take it easy, but trust me, the guilt is going to come in so you’re not going to be able to,’” she says in a Zoom call from her Brooklyn apartment. “It was almost this warning sign.

And I became so fascinated with that idea that there’s this very powerful emotion that seems to almost have this big force over so many of us. That led to me exploring it further from that lens.”.