We recently took a trip and shared a car with our daughter and her three young kids. Because of an unexpected backache the day before we left, I couldn’t take my usual seat in the back to help the kiddos. This left my husband to do so, since our daughter was driving.

Our first trip would last nine hours from Arizona to Southern Colorado. In the road trips my husband and I have taken over decades, I am usually relegated to either looking backward and threatening the unruly passengers or sitting among them. All positions are important, to be sure. The driver needs to pay 100% attention to the road. The shotgun position must act as part-time flight attendant for the driver and back-seat passengers, as well as referee, sheriff, and disciplinarian.

For twenty years, I sat shotgun and sometimes driver. I saw more of where we’d been than where we were going.

All the flipping around made me miserable. It’s no wonder that to this day, I don’t know where the turnoffs are to locations we have visited for decades, because I never saw where we were going in the first place. And I don’t pay attention either.

Imagine the thrill of getting to sit in shotgun and not having to handle the back-seaters because Grandpa was there. It was surreal. I could talk with the driver, aka my daughter, and see what the road ahead looked like too.

My experience was different from my husband’s. This man, who for fifty years had been behind the yoke, joystick, or wheel, was far more comfortable sitting in the captain’s seat. On this trip, he would have no control over the speed, route, or stops.

For years, when our family traveled, our road trips were what I call destination-oriented trips. Get in the car, buckle up, be quiet, one potty break, and drive until we arrive. It’s no wonder the natives in the backseat went crazy from time to time.

Grandpa’s job was to keep the kiddos happy, well fed, and entertained. They were exceptionally well-behaved, so he had it easy.  So easy, in fact, that he had time to surf his favorite websites and keep us abreast of the rising price and scarcity of diesel fuel, the sugar futures market, and the current weather in Cambodia. Back in the day, when I had backseat duty, I had to break up so many quarrels that I earned an honorary sheriff’s badge.

We were truly grateful for his sacrificial gift of self to his grandchildren. I secretly smiled because this experience was long overdue. After two long trips in the back seat, he had sufficiently experienced a minor taste of what my typical day had been on family road trips. He stepped up, and I am proud of him. The grandkids loved spending more time with grandpa too. He got to walk a few miles in my sandals and is happy to take the wheel once again.

How many dads get to genuinely experience a day in the life of their wife serving all the kids’ needs and ignoring their own? How many wives have an idea of the pressure and tenacity it takes to provide for the family, come home, and instantly do the daddy thing? How many couples do both and are too exhausted to appreciate the good work either is doing for the family?

Until I took a trip with my pilot husband and experienced all the annoying early mornings, time changes, rerouting, jet lag, and noisy hotel rooms—I thought he had the easy end of the stick and a dream job. And until he had to be mommy when I was sick and out of commission, he didn’t really understand the stamina, patience, and fortitude required to be the only parent the kids rely on.

Each of our roles is different but necessary, indispensable, unique, and complements the marriage and the family. We can sometimes downplay our spouse’s contribution and exaggerate our own. Guilty on all counts! This only leads to resentment. Instead, let us work together for the good of our marriage and family by noticing the efforts each of us makes toward a happy and holy family.

Affirm, not annihilate.

Cooperate, not compare.

Motivate, not measure.

“Love is never something that is ready-made, something merely ‘given’ to man and woman; it is always at the same time a ‘task’ which they are set. Love should be seen as something which in a sense never ‘is’ but is always only ‘becoming,’ and what it becomes depends upon the contribution of both persons and the depth of their commitment.  St. John Paul II