“Can we talk about the absolute dread of dealing with contractors when it’s just you?”

That was the question posted on the Frolo app this week, and honestly, the comments filled up fast. Not because people had advice about boilers or sealant or how to word a complaint email, but because so many single parents immediately recognised the feeling behind it.

The original poster explained that she’d recently had work done at home by a crew of male contractors and had found it “extremely intimidating” trying to give feedback about work she wasn’t happy with. She talked about spending the whole morning trying to find “the courage and the words” to respond to an invoice email with photos of what needed fixing.

“I’m mortified and scared,” she wrote.

And the thing is, if you’ve never been in that position, it might sound dramatic. But for a lot of single parents, especially those managing absolutely everything alone, this kind of situation can feel huge.

Because it’s never just about the dodgy tiling or the leak under the sink.

It’s about being the only adult in the room.

The mental load nobody talks about

When you’re parenting solo, there’s often nobody to hand jobs over to. Nobody to say, “Can you deal with this?” Nobody to back you up if something feels awkward or intimidating. Every decision, every phone call, every bit of confrontation lands with you.

And home repairs can feel particularly stressful because they combine a lot of vulnerable things at once:

• Letting strangers into your home
• Worrying about money
• Feeling out of your depth
• Having to challenge someone confidently
• Trying not to get ripped off
• Pretending you know what “the flashing” is

Even when contractors are perfectly lovely, there can still be a feeling of being exposed or uncertain. You don’t want to sound difficult. You don’t want to be dismissed. You don’t want to ask a “stupid” question. You don’t want to get it wrong.

One commenter summed it up perfectly:

“It shouldn’t be this way, but it is.”

And that sentence really seemed to hit home for people.

“I thought it was just me”

One of the nicest things about the post was seeing how quickly other single parents piled in to say: SAME.

People admitted they also dread tradespeople visiting. That they overthink emails for hours. That they panic about being taken advantage of. That they rehearse conversations in advance. That they wish they had someone standing next to them saying, “No, go on, that’s reasonable, send it.”

Others offered practical suggestions, from getting recommendations in local groups to taking photos of work as it progresses, but what really stood out was the reassurance. Nobody mocked the fear. Nobody said, “Just be assertive.” Nobody acted like it was silly. Instead, the comments were full of understanding, encouragement, and tiny boosts of confidence from people who genuinely got it.

That’s the magic of spaces like Frolo. Sometimes you don’t actually need a perfect solution. You just need somebody else to say, “Oh wow, yes, I feel exactly like that too.”

The invisible side of solo parenting

There are so many parts of single parenting that people outside it simply don’t think about.

Things like:

• Who do you put down as your emergency contact?
• Who do you ask to hold the ladder?
• Who do you text after a difficult parents’ evening?
• Who helps you decide whether that quote sounds reasonable?
• Who reassures you that you’re not overreacting?

When you’re in a couple, these things can become almost invisible because the support is built in. But when you’re doing life alone, every tiny responsibility becomes more visible, more emotional, and sometimes more exhausting.

And yet single parents deal with these things all the time.

They send the scary emails.
They challenge the invoices.
They learn what boiler pressure means via YouTube tutorials at 11pm.
They become experts in things they never wanted to know about.

Not because they particularly want to, but because they have to.

Why community matters so much

The original poster finished by saying she hoped she’d “find her inner She-Ra” when the contractors returned.

Honestly? She probably already had.

Not because she felt fearless, but because she posted about it anyway. Because she asked for support. Because she did the difficult thing despite feeling uncomfortable.

And perhaps that’s what spaces like Frolo are really about. Not pretending single parenting is easy or empowering every second of the day, but creating somewhere people can admit the bits they’re struggling with without feeling judged.

Sometimes the most comforting thing in the world is discovering that the worry you’ve been carrying around quietly is actually shared by loads of other people too.

If you’re a single or solo parent looking for support, solidarity, advice, or just people who genuinely understand the weirdly stressful reality of things like home repairs, download the Frolo app and join the conversation.

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