Club Sandwich
The Sandwich Generation finally gets the conversation we deserve. Club Sandwich is the community for those caring for ageing parents while juggling work, kids, relationships, and sanity. This is your tribe when family doesn't get it - or just isn't enough. Hosted by veteran broadcaster Sarah Macdonald, Club Sandwich features clinical psychologists instead of life coaches, GPs instead of gratitude journals, and honest conversations about the relief-guilt paradox nobody else will touch. Episodes include: 🔧 This Week's Hack - Actionable strategy you can use today 💌 Listener Letter - Real questions from Clubbers like you 🔥 Hot Mess Moments - Stories that make you feel less alone 🛠️ What We're Using - Resources and tools that actually help Meet the regular Clubbers: Melissa Reader - CEO of Vera aged care platform (vera.guide) and expert on Australia's ageing crisis and system failures. Dr. Jo Lamble - Clinical psychologist specializing in guilt, family dynamics, and the impossible decisions when every option has a cost. Dr. Ginny Mansberg - GP and women's health advocate who tells it straight about what caregiving does to your body. Dr. Stephanie Ward - Geriatrician and consulting expert for ABC's Old People's Home for 4 Year Olds, helping you understand when "old" becomes a crisis—and when it doesn't. Kerry Milligan - Gogglebox Australia star bringing humor, honesty, and hard-won perspective to impossible family situations. No bubble baths. No bullshit. Just expert-led, community-first support for people who don't need another thing to feel bad about not doing. Club Sandwich is more than a podcast - it's a movement. Join our private Facebook community, attend live events across Australia, and access free downloadable resources with every episode. New episodes every Thursday. Visit clubsandwich.community to join the tribe. Topics covered: Caregiver guilt, sibling conflict, dementia care, financial planning, legal issues, family boundaries, burnout prevention, end-of-life decisions, self-care that actually works, navigating aged care systems, and the emotional toll of caring for ageing parents. Credits Club Sandwich is brought to you by Vera, helping families caring for ageing parents navigate this stage of life — so you don't have to do it alone. Sarah Macdonald - Host + Executive Producer Melissa Reader - Commissioning Editor, Executive Producer + Clubber Rachel Fountain - Executive Producer Audio + video edits by Fountain Media Group Thanks and kudos to Sean Wayland for our awesome theme music Club Sandwich - hear more from Sean at seanwayland.com
Episodes
Maggie Beer, cook, author and founder of the Maggie Beer Foundation, joins Sarah Macdonald to talk about food, ageing and why what's on the plate in an aged care home matters more than most families realise.
Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.
JOIN THE CLUB: Visit clubsandwich.community to join the tribe, access resources, and find our private Facebook community.
SEND US YOUR QUESTION: hello@clubsandwich.commun...
Natalie Siegel-Brown spent years holding the government to account for the funding, administration and regulation of Australia's aged care system as the Inspector General of Aged Care. She's also part of the sandwich generation herself, raising an 11-year-old while supporting her own ageing parents.
Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.
JOIN THE CLUB: Visit clubsandwich.community to join the tribe, access resources, and f...
" I always find that there's part of me here, and there's another part of me swimming with the fish in the sea at the same time."
In this episode, Indira Naidoo joins Sarah to talk about her new role with the  Sydney Theatre Company, spending time under her tree, and the importance of creativity in her life.
They reflect on rediscovering play and creativity in midlife, the limits of journalism in changing narratives, and how crafts...
"I'm alright, sweetheart. No, I don't need help." Every one of us has heard it.
Prue Bowden runs home care for 50,000 Australian families, which makes her the person everyone corners at parties to ask about a parent who won't accept a thing. Today, she's in the chair talking about what to actually do next.
Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.
Content note: this episode covers ageing parents, dementia, hospital decl...
In this bonus episode, Sarah Macdonald is joined by Kerry Milligan and Melissa Reader to discuss representations of the sandwich generation on screen.
Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.
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.
Grief doesn't run to the timetable you were handed. A year after her mum Emmie died, Kerry Milligan thought she was managing well. Then she went back to Tasmania with a small plastic container of her mother's ashes, and found out that year one isn't a finish line.
Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.
For support: Carer Gateway 1800 422 737. Griefline 1300 845 745. Lifeline 13 11 14, 24/7.
JOIN THE CLUB: Visit clubsandwic...
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 7...
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 qu...
She found out she was a carer from a line buried in her dad's hospital discharge papers, not from anyone asking her. This week's guest lived the exact crisis she'd spent her career trying to fix.
Content note: this episode discusses the deaths of both of the guest's parents within six months of each other, terminal illness, carer burnout, grief, and systemic failures in aged care support. For support: Carer Gateway 1800 422 737. Gr...
A will is only useful when you're dead, but the rest of the paperwork is critical long before that. This week's guest lives and breathes it for a living.
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 each actually do, who needs one, and why doing them together in...
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 que...
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 is in the chair for the layer of the sandwich generation nobody names.
Content note: this is a lighter, funnier episode than most, although the last few minutes touch briefly on ageing parents and visiting a grandparent in aged care. For support: Relationships Australia 1300 364 277 (relationships....
What do you do when your kids are still little and your parents are already old? The queen of common sense, Maggie Dent, is in the chair for the double squeeze.
Content note: this episode includes honest conversations about death and dying, children's grief, and caring for a parent with dementia. Be gentle with yourself while you listen. For support: National Dementia Helpline 1800 100 500 (24/7). Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (kidshe...
What happens when your marriage ends in the exact season your parent needs you most? Katie Noonan knows, and this week, she tells us how you start again in the middle of everything.
Content note: this episode discusses separation and divorce, grief and the death of a parent. Be gentle with yourself while you listen. For support: Relationships Australia 1300 364 277 (relationships.org.au) — counselling and separation support. ...
The same conversation, again and again. The strange ideas. The day they don't know your face. Part two of our dementia special is about how you cope when a parent is becoming someone else — and how to look after yourself while you do.
JOIN THE CLUB: Visit https://clubsandwich.community to join the conversation.
SEND US YOUR QUESTION: hello@clubsandwich.community
In this episode:
The Conversation: Part two of our two-par...
We all walk into a room and forget why we came in. So how do you tell ordinary forgetfulness from the early signs of something more? This week, in part one of our two-part dementia special, geriatrician Dr Stephanie Ward shows us what to actually look for.
JOIN THE CLUB: Visit https://clubsandwich.community to join the conversation.
SEND US YOUR QUESTION: hello@clubsandwich.community
In this episode:
The Conversation: Part on...
Most of us have a conversation we keep avoiding – about ageing, about more help at home, about dying. In this week's episode, recorded live in Sydney, palliative care physician Dr Kathryn Mannix shows us how to have that tender conversation.
Recorded live at our Stay For Supper event, Sarah Macdonald sits down with Dr Kathryn Mannix — global campaigner, author of With the End in Mind and Listen, and palliative ca...
Dementia is the leading cause of death in Australia, and a lot of what we believe about it is making things worse. This week, meet the man who moved in. Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.
JOIN THE CLUB: Visit https://clubsandwich.community to join the tribe, access resources, and find our private Facebook community.
SEND US YOUR QUESTION: hello@clubsandwich.community
In this episode:
Our youngest guest yet. At 21...
Sarah Macdonald and Bianca Dye on caring solo for a mum with dementia when you have no kids and no siblings to share the load – and why "I don't have children" doesn't disqualify you from the sandwich generation.
This week Sarah Macdonald is joined by broadcaster Bianca Dye: an only child, with no kids of her own, and the sole carer for her 81-year-old mum, who has Alzheimer's-form dementia.
Bianca keeps apologising fo...
Ageing parents? You've got them. We've got you.
This week Sarah Macdonald is joined by Dr Joanne Bennett from the Australian Catholic University, designer of the upcoming 'Thriving Without Driving' program, to unpack one of the most loaded conversations in the sandwich generation: taking the keys.
Together they map the three kinds of older drivers (the acceptors, the reluctants and the resistors), why stopping drivin...
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