Mother’s Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in May in most English-speaking countries. This article in the Brisbane Courier of 12 May 1930 describes the origins of Mother’s Day.
The Courier Mail, Saturday 12 May 1934, page 11.
WHITE FLOWER ON MOTHERS’ DAY -Story of a Beautiful Custom
BADGE OF CHIVALRY
Tomorrow, the second Sunday in May, every part of the English speaking world will celebrate Mother’s Day, and men and women in every walk of life will wear a white flower in honour of Mother.
This beautiful custom, which is entirely free from mawkish sentiment, has associations of simple grandeur and dignity to the thoughtful man or woman to whom the word Mother is symbolic of all that is best and noblest in womanhood.
Just as in mediaeval times, the white flower was an emblem of the chivalry of knighthood, which held all women in reverence, so in the modern age, disfigured by a materialism that often makes men lose sight of spiritual things, the little white flower survives as the badge, the insignia of every true man’s innate chivalry to womanhood, idealised by his mother.
OLD ENGLISH CUSTOM
The beginning of the Mothers’ Day observance has been traced to the United States, but in its turn the movement derived its origin from the old English custom of Mothering Sun day. English provincial life is rich in beautiful customs which have been handed down from preceding generations, and faithfully observed with quaint and simple dignity.
One day in Lent is always observed in some counties as Mothering Sunday. On that day there is a happy family reunion around the fireside, with mother in the place of honour, enthroned in the most comfortable chair, radiantly happy with her sons and daughters around her. They have travelled from near and far to do honour to her on this one day of family reunion.
Among them is, perchance, the wanderer who has sailed in ships to the
uttermost parts of the earth, and found, like Sinbad, ‘strange islands far beyond the setting sun.’ Living the rough life of the men of the sea, rubbing shoulders with men of all nationalities, he has not forgotten the mother who waits for his return in the little seaport town, and he is numbered among the family gathering on this the mother’s proudest day of the
year.
Read more at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36729102#