Club Sandwich

Epizode

• 
  Grandpa in the Granny Flat | A 'Compass' Follow-Up with Janelle and Nicole | Club Sandwich 12.08.2026 34min

  Legendary ladies Janelle Adams and Nicole Bennett are looking after Janelle's 94-year-old dad Ernie, Ernie's dog Bella, and their two boys Max and Sam – all under one roof. They shared their story with Sarah on last Sunday's episode of Compass (available on ABC iView), and on today's episode of Club Sandwich, they join us with an update about how life has changed since Sarah visited them. For support: Carer Gateway 1800 422 737. Griefline 1300 845 745. Lifeline 13 11 14, 24/7. JOIN THE CLUB: Visit https://clubsandwich.community to join the conversation.SEND US YOUR QUESTION: hello@clubsandwich.community Meet the regular Clubbers:Melissa Reader — CEO of Vera and expert on Australia's ageing crisis.Jo Lamble — Clinical psychologist specialising in guilt and family dynamics.Dr Ginni Mansberg — GP and women's health advocate.Dr Stephanie Ward — Geriatrician helping you understand the ageing brain.Kerry Milligan — Gogglebox star bringing humour and honesty. Watch the Compass episode 'Sandwiched' on ABC iView: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/compass/series/40/video/RN2511H023S00 Put The Kettle On, Vera's free conversation guide: the five questions worth asking your ageing mum or dad, at putthekettleon.com.au. Our FACES campaign: Last year, 4,812 older Australians died waiting for the aged care they'd already been approved for, about 13 a day. Vera started FACES to count the people waiting, and count the ones we lose, every quarter, published. If you're sitting in that wait with your mum or dad right now, add your name at vera.guide/faces. This episode was supported by Australian Unity, home health and care services: australianunity.com.au/clubsandwich. With thanks to NSW Trustee and Guardian. Search NSW Trustee and Guardian, or call 1300 10 20 30. Vera is your candid companion as you care for an ageing parent. Have a look at https://vera.guide.Credits:Sarah Macdonald – Host + Executive ProducerMelissa Reader – Commissioning Editor, Executive Producer + ClubberJustin McArthur – Executive Producer + Editor, for P. Zinner Podcasts (https://pzinner.com.au)Thanks and kudos to Sean Wayland for our theme music Club Sandwich — hear more at https://seanwayland.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
• 
  Stand Up. You Don't Have Time To Sit Down. | FACES with Melissa Reader | Club Sandwich 09.08.2026 10min

  Melissa Reader provides an update on Vera's FACES campaign.FACES (Families for Aged Care Equity and Support) is a family-led campaign asking for one honest count of the number of people waiting for their aged care funding and the people who die while they're waiting. Add your name at vera.guide/faces.Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you. Put The Kettle On — Vera's free conversation guide: the five questions worth asking your ageing mum or dad, at putthekettleon.com.au This episode was supported by Australian Unity, home health and care services — australianunity.com.au/clubsandwich. With thanks to NSW Trustee and Guardian — search NSW Trustee and Guardian, or call 1300 10 20 30. Vera is your candid companion as you care for an ageing parent. Have a look at https://vera.guide.Credits:Sarah Macdonald – Host + Executive ProducerMelissa Reader – Commissioning Editor, Executive Producer + ClubberJustin McArthur – Executive Producer + Editor, for P. Zinner Podcasts (https://pzinner.com.au)Thanks and kudos to Sean Wayland for our theme music Club Sandwich — hear more at https://seanwayland.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
• 
  Caring in Crisis: How An Expert On Ageing Got Toasted | Gohar Yazdabadi | Club Sandwich 05.08.2026 40min

  Gohar Yazdabadi found out she was a carer from a line in her dad's hospital discharge papers, not from anyone asking her. As CEO of Council on the Ageing (COTA) NSW, she'd spent her career around the aged care system. Then in the space of six months, she lost both her parents, her father to a brain tumour, her mother to ovarian cancer, while raising two young daughters and running a full-time advocacy organisation. She joins Sarah Macdonald to talk about the year-long wait for an approved home-care package, being refused compassionate-grounds after-school care, and the administrative burden that continues long after a parent dies. Also this week: Gohar features in an ABC Compass special on the sandwich generation, airing w/e 8–9 Aug. This is heavier than most episodes; content note for grief and terminal illness.
• 
  The Paperwork: Power of Attorney, Wills and Estates | Marie Brownell | Club Sandwich 29.07.2026 38min

  A will is only useful when you're dead, but the rest of the paperwork is critical long before that. Marie Brownell, Director of Estate Planning and Administration at NSW Trustee and Guardian, joins Sarah Macdonald to explain what a power of attorney, an enduring power of attorney, an enduring guardianship and a will actually do, and who needs each one.
• 
  Launching the FACES campaign | Melissa Reader | Club Sandwich 26.07.2026 8min

  Melissa Reader on the launch of Vera's new FACES campaign.FACES (Families for Aged Care Equity and Support) is a family-led campaign asking for one honest count of the number of people waiting for their aged care funding and the people who die while they're waiting. Add your name at vera.guide/faces.Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you. Put The Kettle On — Vera's free conversation guide: the five questions worth asking your ageing mum or dad, at putthekettleon.com.au This episode was supported by Australian Unity, home health and care services — australianunity.com.au/clubsandwich. With thanks to NSW Trustee and Guardian — search NSW Trustee and Guardian, or call 1300 10 20 30. Vera is your candid companion as you care for an ageing parent. Have a look at https://vera.guide.Credits:Sarah Macdonald – Host + Executive ProducerMelissa Reader – Commissioning Editor, Executive Producer + ClubberJustin McArthur – Executive Producer + Editor, for P. Zinner Podcasts (https://pzinner.com.au)Thanks and kudos to Sean Wayland for our theme music Club Sandwich — hear more at https://seanwayland.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
• 
  Kidults: When the Nest Doesn't Empty | Jo Lamble | Club Sandwich 22.07.2026 37min

  Your kid finished school years ago. They're 22, or 27, or 33. So why are you still doing their washing? Clinical psychologist Jo Lamble joins Sarah Macdonald for the layer of the sandwich generation nobody names: adult children still at home, or back home again. The fix isn't stricter rules, it's a mindset shift, treating them like a good flatmate instead of a child, plus the four-layer club sandwich (parents, yourself, adult kids, grandkids), and why we've got to advertise adulthood, not just survive it. Warm, funny, and useful. No heavy content warnings this week.
• 
  Young Kids, Old Parents: The Double Squeeze | Maggie Dent | Club Sandwich 15.07.2026 39min

  What do you do when your kids are still little and your parents are already old? Beloved parenting educator Maggie Dent joins Sarah Macdonald for the double squeeze — COVID's developmental hangovers, what's really under a tantrum, burnt chop syndrome and the 90-minutes-in-the-diary rule, giving little kids a real job in Grandpa's care, and why children need the real words for death. Warm, wise and very funny. Content note: discusses death and dying, children's grief and dementia.
• 
  Divorce, Grief, and a Coven of Witches | Katie Noonan | Club Sandwich 08.07.2026 37min

  What happens when your marriage ends in the exact season your parent needs you most? Five-time ARIA Award winner Katie Noonan joins Sarah Macdonald to talk about divorce in the sandwich years — the end of her 26-year marriage, losing her dad in the same chapter, holding her family steady, and turning all of it into her new album Alone But All One. Honest, warm and full of hope for anyone starting again in the middle. Content note: discusses separation, grief and the death of a parent.
• 
  After the Diagnosis: Caring for a Parent with Dementia | Dr Stephanie Ward | Club Sandwich | Dr Stephanie Ward | Club Sandwich 01.07.2026 40min

  The same conversation, again and again. The strange ideas. The day they don't know your face. In part two of our dementia special, geriatrician and regular Clubber Dr Stephanie Ward joins Sarah Macdonald for the harder half — how you cope when a parent is becoming someone else, therapeutic fibbing, aggression and your own safety, and why a held hand still counts even when they forget the visit. Content note: discusses advanced dementia, carer grief and changed behaviour.
• 
  Forgetful, or Something More? Dementia, Delirium or Normal Ageing | Dr Stephanie Ward | Club Sandwich 24.06.2026 39min

  You walk into a room and forget why — is that it, or is it ageing? In part one of our two-part dementia special, geriatrician and regular Clubber Dr Stephanie Ward helps Sarah Macdonald untangle normal forgetting from dementia from delirium: the real early signs, why around one in five memory worries turn out to be something treatable, and what to do next. Content note: discusses dementia, memory loss and caring for an unwell parent.
• 
  Tender Conversations | Live with Dr Kathryn Mannix | Club Sandwich 17.06.2026 1h 5min

  "Most of us have a conversation we're avoiding." Recorded live at our Stay For Supper evening in Sydney, Sarah Macdonald sits down with palliative care physician Dr Kathryn Mannix (With the End in Mind, Listen) for a warm, funny, honest hour on the talks we keep putting off with our ageing parents – and why they're tender, not difficult. The questions that actually work, and the secret ingredient: being quiet. Content note: discusses serious illness, dying and grief.
• 
  Human Forever | The man who moved into a dementia ward, with Teun Toebes | Club Sandwich 10.06.2026 38min

  At 21, Teun Toebes moved into the locked dementia ward of a nursing home and stayed three and a half years. Sarah Macdonald meets Club Sandwich's youngest ever guest on his first day in Australia to talk about what living alongside 130 housemates with dementia taught him: that we don't lack beds or money, we lack humanity. It's practical, hopeful and quietly radical, and it will change the way you visit.
• 
  One text away from falling apart | Bianca Dye on caring for a parent with dementia | Club Sandwich 03.06.2026 36min

  "I can't human for two." Broadcaster Bianca Dye joins Sarah Macdonald to talk about caring solo for her 81-year-old mum, who has dementia — with no kids and no siblings to share it. Why you don't need children to be in the sandwich generation, how friends become family, the hack of choosing kind over right, and the hardest part: loving a mum who wasn't always there. Content note: includes discussion of dementia and suicidal thoughts. Support: Lifeline 13 11 14, Dementia Australia 1800 100 500.
• 
  Driving Us Crazy | Taking The Keys with Dr Joanne Bennett | Club Sandwich 27.05.2026 34min

  "They say they're fine. You can see they're not." Sarah Macdonald sits down with Dr Joanne Bennett to unpack one of the hardest conversations in the sandwich generation – getting an ageing parent off the road. Why license loss is grief, when to "dob them in," and how to help your parent thrive without driving.
• 
  A Landscape of Loss | Bob Carr on losing his life partner | Club Sandwich 20.05.2026 40min

  In 2023, Bob Carr's wife Helena died of an aneurysm in his arms in Vienna, after a night at the opera. She'd been his constant companion for more than 50 years. The former NSW Premier has written about it in Bring Back Yesterday. This week Sarah Macdonald sits down with Bob for a long, honest conversation about losing a life partner. What grief actually feels like. Why it comes in waves, not stages. And what to do if you're caring for a parent who's just been widowed.
• 
  Put The Kettle On | Five Questions To Ask Your Ageing Parents | Kerry Milligan and Jo Lamble | Club Sandwich 13.05.2026 1h 2min

  We all know we need to have that conversation with our ageing parents — what they want, what they don't, who'll speak for them, what they want remembered. Most of us never start it. This week Sarah Macdonald and Kerry Milligan put the kettle on and walk through Vera's five questions for the kitchen table, live. Then clinical psychologist Jo Lamble debriefs — where Sarah hit a nerve, how to read the room when your parent goes quiet, and why this is a kindness, not an interrogation. Plus a free guide so you can do it this weekend with your own mum or dad.
• 
  Mother's Day. It’s Different Now | A special Mother’s Day episode with Jo Lamble | Club Sandwich 06.05.2026 35min

  Mother's Day in the sandwich generation isn't a sleep-in and breakfast in bed — it's emptying your mum's fridge, doing up her seatbelt, and feeling the relationship shift in your hands. Sarah Macdonald and clinical psychologist Jo Lamble unpack what happens to your relationship with your ageing mum: the role reversal, the unfiltered comments, the re-triggered old wounds, the sibling who flies in like royalty, the mums who weren't there at all, and the long tail of Mother's Day grief. Plus a small, practical idea if your mum has died.
• 
  Can You Do This Without a Drink? | Melissa Reader | Club Sandwich 29.04.2026 27min

  If you’re reaching for a drink after visiting your mum, dealing with family fallout or just trying to get through the pressure of midlife, this one will land. In this episode, Sarah Macdonald and Melissa Reader unpack alcohol, stress, sleep, ritual and what to do instead.
• 
  Aged Care: The Sniff Test | When home is no longer safe| Club Sandwich 22.04.2026 42min

  Trying to make sense of aged care in Australia before something goes wrong? Sarah Macdonald sits down with Linda Mellors for an Aged Care 101 conversation covering My Aged Care, home care packages, assessments, aged care at home, residential care, and the decisions families need to make before a fall, hospital stay or crisis forces the issue.
• 
  Are Our Parents Living Too Long? Lucinda Holdforth on frailty, dementia and dying well | Club Sandwich 15.04.2026 37min

  How long is too long when an ageing parent is frail, unwell and still hanging on? Sarah Macdonald talks with author Lucinda Holdforth about the emotional toll of prolonged caring, the years many families now spend with dementia and chronic illness, the carer thoughts we are not supposed to admit, and why Australia still struggles to talk honestly about quality of life, ageing, and dying well.