Virtual Assisting & Motherhood: Why It’s the Perfect Flexible Career for Women

What if you could design your career before you need it to support your life?

In this episode of The ROCKET VA™ Podcast, Debbie shares a powerful and honest conversation about virtual assisting, motherhood and why now is the time to build a flexible, future-proof career.

After running a poll on Instagram, Debbie discovered that 75% of her audience want children one day - yet over half don’t currently have flexible work or childcare options.

And that raises an important question:

👉 What happens if you don’t prepare for that future now?

In this episode, Debbie explores why so many women find themselves stuck between career and family, and how becoming a Virtual Assistant can offer a solution - providing flexibility, financial independence and long-term security.

She also shares her personal perspective as someone who doesn’t yet have children, but is intentionally building a life and career that will support that future when the time comes.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why it’s important to plan your career before motherhood
• The reality of flexible work (and the lack of it in traditional careers)
• How virtual assisting allows you to work around your life
• Why financial independence is essential for every woman
• Real-life examples of mums building successful VA businesses
• What happens when you don’t prepare for flexibility in advance
• Why building skills now creates more options later

This episode also explores the importance of having your own income, skills and independence as a woman.

Because while we all hope for supportive partnerships, true confidence comes from knowing you can rely on yourself - in any season of life.

This Episode Is For You If:

• You want children one day but haven’t thought about your career setup
• You’re already a mum and need more flexibility
• You feel stuck in a job that won’t support your future lifestyle
• You want a career that gives you freedom, control, and choice

Ready to Explore Becoming a Virtual Assistant?

Download the free VA Starter Kit and discover how to build a flexible, remote career:

👉https://www.rocketva.com/starterkit

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Okay, hello and welcome back to the Rocket Pay podcast. I'm really excited to be here this week because today's episode is one that I feel really passionate about because the world of virtual assisting and this podcast isn't just about building a business, it's about living and building a life on your terms and in advance. And specifically, I want to talk to you today about virtual assisting and motherhood and whether you're already a mum, planning to become one, or just thinking about your future, this episode is for you. And I shared something on my Instagram recently that's really sparked a conversation, also, lots of thoughts within me about motherhood and who is preparing for it, whether we're preparing for it and whether there are opportunities for us as women to actually set ourselves up for flexible work when we're mothers. So I asked my audience, do you want children one day? And of the women who replied, 75% said yes, the other 25% no, which I think is, I really want to just pinpoint as an incredible point of evolution in the fact that not every woman now feels that they have to have children. This is a choice. And of course, some women want children, unfortunately, you can't have them or have difficulties. But ultimately, for those who do want kids, although 75%, actually, 55% of them said that they didn't currently have flexible childcare or work that would support that. So for those 75% of the women in my audience who do want kids one day, 55% don't have flexible work set up already. And that really stopped me in my tracks because that's over half of these ladies. And what that really means is that so many women want children but don't yet have the lifestyle or career set up that will support their future. And the truth is, if you don't prepare for that now, you risk being in a position where you have to go back to a job that doesn't align, you miss important moments, you feel torn between career and family. And that's something that I really feel strongly about changing. So why am I thinking about this now? For me personally, I don't have children yet. I'm 36. And right now I can enjoy things like freedom, travel, spontaneity, building my business. But I know that one day I would love to have children. So I'm not waiting until that moment to figure things out. I'm preparing now and not just with my health, but with my career, my lifestyle. And you know, I feel so grateful to have this freedom and flexibility for seven years already as a VA. But I know that in my future as a mother, this will still enable me to have that flexible career and flexible work in life, and also have those really important moments that I want to be, you know, pretty much full-time mum, but still with time for my career because that's so important to me. And you know, I think it's so important that I'm preparing now, and I think that it's important that other women are preparing now, not just with their health, but with their career and lifestyle, because now is the best time to build flexibility before you actually need it, before it becomes this need and like you have to have it. It's like, why not build it now? So here's a little reality check about motherhood and work. You know, let's talk about the real facts and figures here. Globally, around 70% of mothers are in the workforce. So that's a lot of mums who are not stay-at-home mums in or they're working in some capacity. And many return to roles that are not flexible. So even if they want flexible working, they have to return to roles that aren't flexible because they're the only options that they have. And a large percentage of women reduce hours or leave careers due to childcare limitations. And, you know, I'm sure my friend Sophie won't mind me talking about her, but I know that she had a really good job in a company. She'd worked there for years and years, I think more than 15. But when she had a second child, the work for so her employees just weren't flexible and they didn't allow her to take the time off that she wanted. I think she wanted to go part-time. They said you could have a half day or one day a week. That wasn't the flexible working that she desired. It wouldn't enable her to pick her kids up and take them to school and and drop them off and be there for the school plays. So it really wasn't flexible enough. So she had to leave that good career that she'd built 15 years of her life working on. And maybe she'll go back one day, but for these next few years of her life, she really wants to become dedicated to her children, which I totally understand. But I'm sure that she would love to have some kind of income, some flexibility, some work on the side. But her employees didn't let that happen. So, you know, that's a big challenge because there's so much lack in that space, there's a lack of control over schedules, and also this high childcare cost. So, you know, even when women do go back to work, they have to consider the childcare costs of their of their work. And a lot of the times, that high childcare costs, especially if you live in big cities, can almost outweigh the even the income you get from going to work. So it's like, what even is the point sometimes? So this is why careers like virtual assisting are becoming more important than ever, because virtual assisting gives you something that traditional careers often don't. So this is flexibility to work around your schedule, location freedom, you can work from home literally anywhere from the the car when your kids are playing football. You can have control over your income. So, you know, whether you want to work two hours a day and earn a thousand pounds a month, or whether you want to full-time hours and earn 4K a month, then you have that control, you have that flexibility, and also you have choice over who you work with. You know, in traditional careers, we have to work with set clients or go with the flow with check company changes, and often when you come back from maternity leave, there's new changes, there's developments in your role. But actually, with virtual assistants, you get to choose your clients and also get to choose how your work evolves rather than going back into an office or an environment where you are seen as less than because you have kids and yet you have different roles now, and maybe your role has changed in that maternity period. You know, it's like I really want women to feel empowered that when they have children, this can actually be the start of their next step in their career. And even if they want to work two hours a day or less as a virtual assistant, that can be a consistent income for say four or five years while I have kids in those younger ages, younger years. And then as their kids go after school, they can increase their hours and do more hours, four to six hours during the school day. And then after that, as well, there are so many options for career progression as a virtual assistant. You can increase your hours, you can specialise in skills, you can train to become a business manager, you can create an agency. So being a virtual assistant might now look like working a couple of hours a day or even a week while being a full-time mum, but in the future it also gives you opportunities to grow and create your own business. So it really can be the start of something awesome for you if you start now. So thinking about the Rocket VA Academy and some real life examples of amazing mums who have totally transformed their life and their careers. One, for example, is my sister Christina, she was a nurse and she was working all hours, and at the end of the day, she couldn't leave that nursing job sometimes because there needed to be someone there to take over from her, and you know, she couldn't just leave patients, but that meant she had to miss things like school plays, school pickups, important days. And you know, for her, that just got to a point where she just didn't want to do that anymore. And when her daughter was, I think, about five years old, she transitioned, she trained through the Rocket Bay Academy, and now she works from home as a virtual assistant and never misses a school event for her daughter. She even goes on school trips. She sometimes pops down and takes um the school, her trainers or her gym trainers or her pack lunch if she's forgotten it. All these little things that used to be a big thing when she was working as a nurse, now just feel easy, and it just means that she has created this awesome, flexible working. And you know, even last summer she had five five weeks around France with her family during the school holidays, which she could do. So this was huge for her, this big change. And then we have Whitney, one of her VAs, who is now living in Cyprus as an army spouse, and she gets to be a present mum, she gets to travel, she gets to continue building a business wherever life takes her, which has all been enabled by being a virtual assistant. And actually, Rocket VA Academy was featured in Army and New Magazine recently, and Whitney had her own feature where she was talking about all about the world of virtual assisting and how this lifestyle, this career has totally transformed her life, and it was so incredible to see that feature. I'm gonna do another episode just about specifically about army spouses and army life and this kind of work for for those women. But you know, a lot of them are mums as well, so it's really just cover you. But just really want to highlight this career, it doesn't just give you income, it gives you options, and I think that's so important, especially as a woman, that we have options. And the truth is, life doesn't always go exactly as we plan. And you know, to bring in a different topic, one in four women are victims of domestic abuse. One in four women are victims of domestic abuse, whether that's a financial, emotional, physical, coercive control, there are so many different forms, and that statistic is high, and that's the cases that we know, and that means that these women are in situations that perhaps they can't escape from. And you know, this is a real, this is a topic that's really close to my heart, you know, it's something that I'm want to forever raise awareness of. And part of the reason I want to help women create their own financial security is that I never want any woman to feel like they can't leave a toxic relationship. So, you know, in life, life doesn't always go as we planned, you know, relationships can change, circumstances can shift. And this is a side of that issue, you know, it's like other things can happen as well. You grow apart from your partner, you know, life changes. Maybe your partner wants to move, you don't. And there are moments where you just need to rely on yourself. And I believe that every woman deserves to have her own income, her own skills, her own sense of security, and not from a place of fear, but from a place of empowerment. Because when you have your own financial independence, you have more choice, more confidence, and more control of your life. And that becomes even more important when you think about motherhood. Because you don't want to feel like you're staying in something or doing something purely because you don't have another option, whether that's relationships, careers, location. You want to feel like you're choosing your life. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about helping women build careers like virtual assisting, because it gives you something that's yours, something that you can take anywhere, and something that you can rely on in any season of your life. So let's be honest about the other side. If you don't set up yourself for flexible work now, you might find yourself in stuck in a job that doesn't support your family life, relying on rigid schedules, or having to choose between income and presence. And that's not a one, and that's not a position I want any woman to be in. So why is now the time to go for it? The biggest mistake I see people thinking is I'll figure it out later, or I'll do it later, or I'll join later, I'll join next year. Building a business, learning skills, gaining clients, that takes time. So the best thing that you can do now is start, even if it's small, because by the time you need that flexibility, you've already created it, and that is such an amazing asset. And I know there's a few women in the academy who perhaps want to become mothers one day, so they're doing exactly that right now. They're setting themselves up for success as a virtual assistant now. And you know, that's really one of the reasons I love what we're building inside the Rocket VA Academy. It's not just about motherhood, it's about creating freedom and flexibility and your own financial security and independence. And yes, we teach you skills, yes, we support you in how to get clients, and even we've just launched our new talent directory, which I'm very excited about. Disclaimer, I can never confirm that we will find you clients, but we now have new ways to bring amazing clients to the amazing trained VAs in the academy. But more than that, we're helping women create freedom, flexibility, and financial security, not just for now, but for the life they want in the future. So I want to leave you with this. If you want children one day, what are you doing now to prepare for that life? Because your future doesn't just happen, it's built now. So I hope this episode resonated to some of you. I know it worked for everyone, and if it didn't, then I appreciate you listening. But if it did, I really hope that it just was a reminder that if you are thinking about becoming a mother one day or you are a mother now, there are so many ways that we can support you to create a flexible career and also have career progression as well. So if this is something that you have been thinking about even quietly, I want you to explore it. Download the free VA starter kit, head to rocketva.com forward slash starter kit, and start understanding what this path could look like for you. Because this isn't just about becoming a virtual assistant, it's about creating a life that works for you in every season. So thank you for tuning in. I hope you took away some nuggets of wisdom. I am excited to share our next podcast in a couple of weeks. We're trying to do them bi-weekly. At some point in the future, we'll get to weekly, but for now, focusing on a few things in the business, including this new talent directory, which I definitely will share a podcast on. And yeah, just building, growing. And you know, if you are already a member of the Rocket VA Academy, you will know our some of our exciting plans and products that we're launching. And the Rocket VA Academy is a place where we really want everyone to feel supported, nurtured on this journey. So we're going to be here for you every step of the way. If you decide to join us, then I can't wait to support you on this next chapter. And if you're just tuning in, finding out whether this is for you, then thank you for listening and see you next time.