Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day, or Mothering Sunday if you prefer, is coming up pretty soon. Although Mother’s Day is a recognised day in most countries around the world, there is singular disagreement on what day it should be. Mother’s Day in the UK is the fourth Sunday in Lent, and in the US it is observed on the same day as in Australia. In fact there are a total of thirty different days around the world celebrated as Mother’s Day, although a sizeable majority do share the second Sunday in May date.

Opinion is also very divided on whether it should be celebrated or not. Many people believe that it’s just an opportunity for restaurants, florists and other giftware businesses to make a bit of a fuss and a lot more money (apparently it’s the biggest retail spending day after the Christmas period).

According to Wikipedia, the day was first celebrated in 1908, when a lady called Anna Jarvis marked the day and then started a campaign to persuade the US government to have a public holiday on that day. Interestingly, although she got what she wanted in 1914, within a few years she was already a bit disillusioned by the commercialisation that followed.

Jarvis was also quite particular about how it should be celebrated – the position of the apostrophe was important to her, as she wanted each individual mother to be honoured and celebrated, not a collection of mothers (so Mother’s Day it is).

As you might expect, some countries around the world object to the capitalist nature of Mother’s Day, instead opting to celebrate their mothers on International Women’s Day, which is March 8th in most, but not all countries. Some mark both (good one, Ukraine).

According to market data analysts Roy Morgan, Australians spent $1 billion on their mothers on Mother’s Day in 2025, up 50% on the spend two years prior – an average spend of $140 per mum and well ahead of inflation figures! Dads used to do very poorly in comparison, but have now more than caught up with an average spend per gift buyer of $145 for Father’s Day*.

It turns out that although fewer people (7 million in 2025 compared with 9.7 million in 2024) are celebrating Mother’s Day mainly due to cost of living pressures, those who are still celebrating the day are spending more.

This article was updated on 3rd May 2026.

*back in 2014 – when this article was originally published – “the biggest benefactors from this spending bonanza in 2013 were cafes and restaurants, with so called ‘pampering options’ such as massages or beauty services seeing the biggest increase over the previous year, growing 5.5%. $298 million was spent on eating out, $193.4 million splashed out on flowers, shopping vouchers accounted for $134.3 million and cosmetics $131.9 million. Chocolates – surprisingly – were well down the list, with only $43.7 million spent, in fact less than was spent on the ‘homeware’ category. Homeware items – kitchen utensils and the like – are tarred a little with being ‘household chore’ items and not appropriate for a hard working mum, but they still performed better than chocolate”

Image credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Happy_Mothers_Day_(2352111649).jpg