Combating loneliness: finding a community of single parents

Becoming a single parent can be a challenging and lonely time – even if you have supportive friends and family, especially if you don’t know anyone else going through a similar experience.

Single mum, Zoë tells us how her experience led to creating a new app, Frolo. The app aims to support and empower single parents through easy access to friendships, community, support, group chats and meetups. We recommend Frolo to parents going through separation or experiencing loneliness as a single parent, through our national helpline, FamilyLine.

Combating loneliness

In a survey conducted by the Frolo app, 96% of respondents said that they had experienced feelings of loneliness and isolation since becoming a single parent. Loneliness often accompanies the end of a relationship, but for single parents this feeling is heightened by many other factors: spending periods of time away from their children if co-parenting, a reluctance to be a burden on friends with partners, and the craving for adult conversation that being alone at home with children can cause.

A new way to connect with other single parents

Frolo (a combination of the words ‘friend’ and ‘solo’) was created when founder Zoë Desmond experienced this loneliness first-hand and decided to do something about it. Zoë’s relationship ended shortly after her son Billy’s first birthday. On top of the usual heartbreak that accompanies a breakup, Zoë found herself feeling increasingly isolated and dreading the weekends, reluctant to impose upon her friends’ ‘family time.’ She wished there was some way of meeting other local parents in a similar situation for playdates, walks in the park, Sunday lunches, and pub trips.