'I Wish Someone Told Me You Are Sidelined At The Start Of Fatherhood'

Last March 2021, we asked our readers to submit their answers to this question: “How did Smart Parenting help you on your parenting journey?”

We’ve chosen the 10 finalists from all over the country. But YOU get to decide who goes home with P100,000 by voting for the story that touched you the most (scroll below to vote!).

One of the #MySmartParentingStory finalists is Julius Bayoneta, a dad of two. When asked what he wishes someone told him about fatherhood, Julius replied, “In the beginning of fatherhood, you are sidelined. If the baby only wants the mother, there is nothing you can do about it.”

Julius' Smart Parenting story is a letter to his kids

Dear Julian and Juliana, 

Nanay Jean and I got married in 2010. A day before our first wedding anniversary, we had a miscarriage.

When Nanay got pregnant again in 2012, I resigned from work and took care of her until she gave birth to Julian in 2013. I had no regular job at that time and tried consulting work.

I practically took care of Julian until he turned one. We had little help from our families. We were first-time parents.

It takes a village to raise a child, and Smart Parenting became my virtual village. After Nanay’s maternity leave, I was left alone with Julian during the daytime since Nanay needed to go to work.

Julian was purely breastfed, and I learned tips and tricks in managing stored breast milk through Smart Parenting. I learned about developmental milestones and a lot of parenting and childcare stuff from featured articles.

Smart Parenting serves as a virtual mother, mother-in-law, aunts, sisters, and neighbor to me.

Instead of calling for help, I would search through the published articles and surprisingly found answers to my questions.

Last year, Nanay’s difficult pregnancy became worse because it happened at the time of the pandemic. She was due in October 2020 but had pre-term labor in July and eventually gave birth prematurely in September.

Nanay had preeclampsia and gave birth to Juliana, who had to stay in neonatal ICU for a couple of months. She was too small for her gestational age and had complications in her heart and kidney.

In January 2021, Juliana got very sick, and we nearly lost her. She needed heart surgery at 4 months old and very low weight.

In between work, house chores, husband duties, and father responsibilities, reading Smart Parenting articles became my source of solace. Smart Parenting answered so many questions I had in my mind, and it helped shaped me into the husband and father I am now.

Smart Parenting is the virtual village that helped me raise you.

Love, Tatay Julius

Love Julius’ story? Click his name below to vote, so he brings home P100,000!

Want to read the other finalists' stories before voting? You can find all 10 entries here! Voting is until May 15.

While you can vote multiple times using this poll, the results you see do not reflect the actual validated numbers. Did you vote 10 times for one candidate? That will only be considered as 1 vote. So we highly encourage you to vote once and ask your friends to cast their votes as well.

The final winner will be based on the number of unique votes at the end of the voting period. Here's where the voting is so far according to unique votes.

As one of our 10 finalists, Julius will receive:

• An ible Airvida Wearable Air Purifier worth P8,795
• P2,000 worth of gift certificates
• A chance to win P100,000, tax-free, of course!

Submitted entries are edited only for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and formatting.

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