When is Mother’s Day in Australia?
Mother’s Day in Australia is celebrated on the second Sunday in May, NOT the fourth Sunday of Lent as it is in the UK.
Mother’s Day in Australia is celebrated on the second Sunday in May. This is notably different from Mother’s Day in the UK, which takes place on the fourth Sunday of Lent. In 2022, Mother’s Day in Australia will be on Sunday 8th May. In 2023, Mother’s Day in Australia will be on Sunday 14th May.
Mother’s Day in Australia vs UK
As many Brits who have settled in Australia have learned to their cost, these are not the same days as in the UK. Many Poms in Australia have been caught out by the two different dates for Mother’s Day, often more than a month apart. If your mum back in the UK is expecting flowers and chocolates in March or April, waiting for Mother’s Day stuff to appear in Australian shops can be an awkward mistake. Wait until the Australians are sorting out their Mother’s Day cards, and you get grumpy British mums.
Why is Australian Mother’s Day on a different date?
This discrepancy occurs because there’s no real global standard for Mothering Sunday. The Americans go with the same date as the Australians. That’s because Australian Mother’s Day follows the American tradition, which was started by Anna Jarvis in Grafton, West Virginia.
It’s Mother’s Day, rather than Mothers’ Day, as it’s about each family celebrating its own mother. It’s not about honouring all mothers in the world. And Jarvis trademarked the spelling with the singular possessive apostrophe.
The reason the date of Mother’s Day is different in other countries, including the UK, is that a rival Mothering Sunday movement started. This was originally designed to get people to go back to the church or cathedral where they were baptised. Essentially, they should return to their “mother church” once a year.
Over the decades, of course, this origin has been largely lost. Mothering Sunday is now celebrated in pretty much the same way as the American Mother’s Day.
Just to make things even more complicated, Father’s Day in Australia is on a different day to BOTH the UK and the US…
Potential Mother’s Day presents include a sunset dinner cruise in Cairns, wine-tasting tours from Adelaide and a trip to the Innocent Bystander winery in Victoria’s Yarra Valley.
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