Anna Le Pley Taylor | A Floral Designer & Adoptive Mother To Four On Smaller Goals For Different Seasons
by Neha Ruch
Anna Le Pley Taylor underscores the goal of this series with her experiences below that blur the space between stay-at-home and working mother. Anna shares the recalibration from a New York city go-getter to building a floral business alongside her motherhood journey to four adopted children. She goes deep on the realities of the grey area in scaling up and scaling down work seasonally depending on the family's needs and how she tactically makes room for it by integrating work and home and giving herself permission to accept help on both fronts. Read her full and beautiful perspective below.
1. You have such an incredible perspective of balancing your stunning floral business alongside four children. What shifts have you made in your work in various seasons of motherhood?
I think that balance in family/personal life is an ever-changing tide. I have to be willing to alter routines, flex during unusual circumstances, and as the mother, "hold down the ship" while seasons of life change. What has helped me most is to let go of ambitious expectations both personally and professionally and instead set realistic smaller goals for different seasons. For example, plant an entire vegetable garden? Or plant some tomato plants? This season its plant some tomato plants.
I used to be a very ambitious New Year's goal setter, and then I realized that setting year-long goals were unrealistic in my season of life. The world of my small children (ages 5, 4, 2, 2 months) changes seasonally, if not monthly. And their seasonal changes directly affect my work life. So it was a much better plan to set goals for each season. Does one child need a slower start in the mornings right now? Then I don't schedule any childcare until later in the morning. Does one child consistently meltdown after a weekend I've been working? Then I adjust my calendar to have Mondays be free from work.
As we crawl out from under the shadow of a global pandemic, one goal I set this season is to hold more space than usual for my children. Before the pandemic, they would be with a sitter 3 weekdays a week. Now I have scaled back to 1.5 days. Interestingly in the wedding industry, everything has picked up steam, and suddenly we are swamped. But I still wanted to hold to my goal of more time with my children. So I decided I needed to let go of control of some aspects of running my business and hire others to handle them. Knowing this was only for a season (or two, or three) made it much easier to step away.
The bottom line is that I want to create a beautiful life for my children while building a strong, successful company. This means I need to listen to the cues of my children's needs and alter my working space to accommodate their changing seasons.
2. I love your commitment to being present in your children's lives while making room for yourself via your work - what does that look like day to day or week to week?
As I mentioned above, this day-to-day process has changed as our family has grown and accommodates small children's schedules. One significant change I made last year was to move my floral studio into a separate building on our property (it used to be in a commercial property in a town nearby). This has really blurred the lines between "work" and "home," but it also allows me the flow of creating florals while they're taking their afternoon nap. Or process new incoming flowers on a Wednesday after I pick up from preschool. It also means that they are in my work space almost all the time, which is challenging and beautiful for them. I let them play arrange with extra flowers or color on the boxes that come in with our supplies. I hope their memories of growing up include "working" alongside their mother. I do have a couple of days a week that they are not here, and I can be fully present in my work, and because that time is so limited, I am focused and excited to get my job done. I also find myself refreshed as a mother these days. I feel excited to see them and put work aside to be with them.
3. Your team is made up entirely of mothers. How does that dynamic serve you as a woman and a business owner?
One of the most interesting aspects of what I do is the amount of time you spend working alongside other people, busy with your hands, but able to converse in a meaningful manner. In our busy season that could be as much as 16 hours a week - more time than I spend with just about any other friend or relative outside my immediate family. Therefore, in the hiring process, it was essential to me that whoever I hired be a compliment to the other people working. We all design in one room together, sharing spaces and thoughts all day long. I've always said I can train anyone to do flowers, but I can't change their personality. So, hiring mothers was something that came almost naturally. I am not saying that mothers are better floral designers, but mothers are incredibly efficient, nonplussed, and flexible with what they can take on. Floral design requires flexibility, ingenuity, and collaboration. And if anyone has negotiated with a 3-year-old, it takes all the same skills. Initially, I worked alongside my two sisters and my mother, our close family friends (a mother), who then recommended another mother, and so on. All these mothers have been in the thick of it with small children and long for an emotional and creative outlet outside their homes. They do enjoy spending the day (or sometimes more) arranging flowers with their hands and chatting about life with other mothers. The conversations we've had have been tremendous blessings to each of us, and we have been able to help carry each other through difficult seasons and celebrate through joyous seasons.
4. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do family life on our own. What does your village look like?
I heard recently that the era we are in is the only era that has not encouraged, expected, or assumed support for family life. In all other eras, a village was assumed or expected. There were live-in family members to help with the cooking and teaching children. There were wet nurses to help with the night feedings, and there were tutors, cooks, butlers, family compounds, kibbutz - you name it, there were built-in villages. Now? Nothing. And often, we have to hurtle a stigma to be okay with asking for help. I am extremely self-sufficient, so this has been one of the hardest life lessons to learn. But somewhere around the 3rd child, I learned to say "yes" when people asked if they could help. As soon as I did that, I felt free. As simple as saying "yes" when they offered to help take my groceries to the car because my arms were filled with children. Then after that, it became easier for me to see where I was floundering and hire or ask for help (I'm looking at you, laundry). I hired someone to watch the kids a couple of days a week to have space to myself and completely focus on my work. I hired a house cleaner to clean and do all our laundry so that I was not stressed about the dirt or piled up laundry when I did have a chance to sit down with my family finally. I hired a studio manager to take over correspondence with clients (oh my goodness, wedding clients have lots to say) and help create our proposals. And the list goes on. Sure, each person is at a financial cost to us, but that is also the price of my freedom and sanity. It is well worth the cost. And honestly, knowing this is the first era where we have expected ourselves to do it all relieves me of the pressure to try to do it all.
5. I'd be remiss not to ask about your experience with adoption - each of your children were adopted as babies - what perspectives and resources have you found to be uniquely helpful in helping you navigate the various stages of the adoption journey?
We adopted our babies as newborns through the private adoption process. Each time our adoption lawyer matched us with a birth mother, and a few months (or weeks!) later, we'd bring home another sweet newborn baby. The process sounds hugely simplified, but honestly, it was not much more complex than that. We did have to navigate the expected paperwork and such, but our experiences have been very different from others we know who have gone through agencies for adoption. However, our process came with absolutely no support. No "here's what to expect" or "here's how it should go" or "yes, that is normal". We were left on our own to figure it out. That being said, we decided that as best we could, we'd help other people navigate private adoption and birth mother relationships so they would not have to experience the vague grey process we did.
Two things we have learned through this adoption journey and that stand out are a). you have to let go of control of how you think things will or should be. Your expectations need to be tapered to see adoption through the eyes of the birth mother. To understand what position they are in, and then your process will be a lot smoother and less unnerving. b). your child is to be discovered and uncovered. This is true of all children, but with adoption, we can't simply say, "oh, he has uncle Mike's temper" or "she is creative just like her aunt." You have to learn your child. Literally, watch them to learn who they are and are becoming. Adoption frees you to do this, and it's amazing.
Quick Chit Chat:
+ Product you'd gift every mother
A bottle of tequila, a massage and a housecleaner.
+ Most meaningful marriage advice/learning
Go on a date night every week. In the beginning of our marriage this seemed silly since we spent so much time together every day, but with every child we have added, this is the life-line we cling to. We budget for it, we have a babysitter on a weekly retainer, we make a reservation each week. YES, each week. I can say this has been a marriage saver through all that we've navigated, this has kept us looking into each other's eyes and talking and listening.
+ 3 Instagram accounts that inspire you
I love following people who are in very different life situations.
@lindsaybranquinho is a rodeo wife with a lovely high-end boutique, 3 growing cowboys, and a killer chocolate chip recipe
@younghouselove is family who recently downsized to a house in Florida and always has the best tips and tricks for household stuff
@aspiringkennedy is an travel guide expat living in London with her young family and is my inspiration to just "take that trip"
You can follow along more with Anna & AltFlowers on Instagram.
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