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Home › Dad of the Month

Joe Lastinger

By Teri Brown

Each month, iParenting.com spotlights a father who inspires and moves us, who embodies the qualities that we all admire in a person, a man and a father. Above all, the Dad of the Month is dedicated to his children. Rich or poor, famous or not, he shines as an example of what fathering is all about.

Our choice for January is Joe Lastinger, co-founder of Families Fighting Flu.

When you first hear about the organization Families Fighting Flu (FFF), you might wonder what the fuss is about. After all, the flu is something you come down with for a week and then pop back up good as new, right? Not necessarily. One thing all the families involved in this growing nonprofit have in common is they all lost a small child – to the flu.

Joe Lastinger, secretary and treasurer of Families Fighting Flu, is no exception. His 3-year-old daughter, Emily, died in their home as the family waited for her doctor's appointment.

 

An Irreparable Mistake
Though no parent is ever prepared for the death of a child, having your child die from complications from the flu is mind-boggling.

"The list of things I would seriously worry about included things like auto accidents, drowning, an accidental fall, accidental poisoning and maybe cancer," says Lastinger. "In fact, I worried far less even about those things than I did about how my children were faring in school, in social relationships and as a member of the family. If we would have known how serious the flu can affect children we would have taken the same precautions we took (and take) to keep them out from our other fears. We make them wear helmets when they ride bikes, teach them how to cross the road, teach them how to respond to strangers, never leave them unsupervised around a pool, lock up poisonous substances and other harmful things they might ingest to name a few. But we never considered influenza a real threat to our children's lives."

Because Emily and the other Lastinger children have always been healthy, their pediatrician didn't recommend they be vaccinated against influenza. It is an irreparable mistake they will always remember. "We feel very strongly that a flu vaccination could have prevented Emily's death and our work with FFF is all about making sure that other families don't needlessly suffer the loss of a child like we did," says Lastinger.

 

A Seed of Hope
For the Lastingers, the time after Emily's death was a blur. He remembers the support of friends and family, but was exhausted much of the time. Because his wife was in a very advanced stage of pregnancy she was even more fatigued. They buried Emily four days after she died. Nine days later, they went back to the hospital where Emily had been initially and their daughter, Anna, was born.

"For a long time the only things we thought about besides Emily were caring for our newborn and making sure that our boys were OK," says Lastinger. "Slowly we started the process of investigating how and why she died, trying to find out what went so tragically wrong for her."

Shortly after that, the Lastingers joined with other families to form Families Fighting Flu, an alliance of families who have lost a child to the flu or whose child experienced severe medical complications from the influenza virus. They are dedicated to urging flu vaccinations in children and reducing the unnecessary deaths due to influenza.

 

Fighting for Public Awareness
One of Lastinger's most important goals is to help people understand how deadly the flu can be. "Because it is not taken seriously, many parents do not get their children vaccinated each year, leaving their children vulnerable to influenza," says Lastinger. "Like the children of other members of FFF, our daughter, Emily, was not vaccinated because she was a healthy child. Current vaccine policy holds that only children who fall into certain age groups or are otherwise considered 'high risk' are recommended to receive an annual influenza vaccination."

The goals of FFF are to educate parents with regard to the seriousness of influenza and its effects on children, and change the national vaccine policy recommendations, which currently state that only certain children receive influenza vaccinations each year.

"We firmly believe that each year children die unnecessarily from influenza and that these deaths can be prevented through vaccination," says Lastinger. "While we can't undo the past, we feel that our efforts with FFF can, by alerting parents to the danger influenza poses to their children, save lives. That is enough."

 

On Being a Father
Like many fathers who have lost a child, Lastinger has spent a great deal of time thinking about what it means to be a father and what it entails. "Being a father means that I have both the responsibility and privilege of making sure that my children are equipped to take on the world and whatever the world dishes out," says Lastinger. "It is hard to see them learn how unfair life can be so early. On the other hand, I learned a few things from them in the process about how to take each day as it comes. A lot of parents think about teaching kids right from wrong, getting them in to college, instructing them in their faith, but only because it is a foregone conclusion that their children will live until adulthood. Being a father means keeping my kids alive and healthy above all."

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