If you’re new to Frolo, welcome. We thought it was time for a proper introduction to the woman behind the community: Frolo founder Zoë Desmond.

Because before there was an app and a community of single parents connecting with each other, there was simply one single mum who wanted to find other people who understood.

Why Zoë started Frolo

Zoë founded Frolo following her own experience of becoming a single parent. Like so many people going through a separation, she found herself navigating not just the practical changes that come with parenting alone, but a shift in identity and in the shape of her everyday life.

What she wanted was connection.

She wanted to meet other single parents who understood the particular mixture of emotions and experiences that comes with single parenthood, without everything needing to be explained first. People to spend time with, swap experiences with, ask questions of and simply feel normal around.

That idea became Frolo.

From the beginning, Frolo was designed to be more than somewhere to find information about single parenting. It was about building genuine connections between real people: finding friends nearby, arranging meetups, talking openly about the difficult stuff and having people there to celebrate the good stuff too.

And there is plenty of good stuff.

Five things Zoë loves about being a single parent

In an episode of Frolo: The Single Parent Podcast, Zoë talks about something we don’t always hear enough about: the things she genuinely loves about being a single parent.

In My Five Favourite Things About Being A Single Parent, Zoë talks about personal growth, freedom and independence, the bond she has with her son, the community she’s built around them and the connections she’s made with other single parents.

It’s an important conversation because so much of what we hear about single parenthood focuses on what’s missing or what’s difficult. Those challenges are real, and nobody needs to pretend otherwise, but they’re not the whole story.

Single parenthood can bring opportunities to learn more about yourself and what you’re capable of. It can give you the freedom to shape family life on your own terms. It can create a unique relationship with your children and introduce you to friendships and communities that might otherwise never have become part of your life.

For Zoë, one of the biggest shifts has been learning not just to cope with life’s challenges, but to embrace what they can teach us. It’s one of the themes she explores in the full conversation, alongside the unexpected positives and opportunities that single parenthood has brought into her life.

You can hear more from Zoë in the full episode, My Five Favourite Things About Being A Single Parent with Zoë Desmond, on Frolo: The Single Parent Podcast.

The community Zoë wished she’d had

Perhaps the loveliest thing about Frolo now is that the thing Zoë went looking for when she became a single parent exists for somebody else.

A single parent can open the app and discover people who don’t need an explanation of why alternate weekends can feel strange, why Sundays can be difficult, why a child-free evening can feel simultaneously liberating and lonely, or why managing something seemingly ordinary entirely by yourself can sometimes feel like a monumental achievement.

You can ask a question. You can join a conversation. You can find people nearby. You can go to a meetup. You might make a friend you speak to occasionally, or you might meet somebody who becomes part of your life for years.

You don’t have to arrive feeling confident or even particularly sociable. You just have to arrive.

That sense of connection remains at the heart of Frolo: making it easier for single parents to find their people and feel part of something, whatever stage of single parenthood they’re at.

What do you love about being a single parent?

There will always be space to talk honestly about the difficult parts of single parenthood. But it’s important to celebrate the other side too: the freedom, the friendships, the confidence, the adventures, the relationships we build with our children and those moments when we stop and realise just how far we’ve come.

Come and tell us in the Frolo community – and listen to the full conversation with Zoë on Frolo: The Single Parent Podcast.

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