It is a challenge to mindfully administer herbal medicines and vitamin supplements. And if you’re establishing yourself as the family’s healer, you must ask yourself: “Am I giving this remedy based on wisdom and good experience, or am I blindly chasing the illusion that I can control my family’s health?” For my family, I’ve been drawn to the old maxim: Less is more.

We’re exposed to germs and viruses every day. When we’re vulnerable–i.e. lacking the right antibodies, stressed out, and tired–we might welcome illness in. Vitamin C was thought by Linus Pauling to stave off colds, but there are those who don’t even buy into vitamin C’s efficacy.

Since so many dollars are being spent on herbs and supplements these days, one senses that hope is more important than facts to a growing number of people. I’ve spoken with several friends, for instance, who insist that the herb echineacea absolutely helps them ward off illness, even though a recent study claims it doesn’t. I’m still buying it myself.

But as I prepare for my own meeting with one serious malady or another, and for my eventual death (which I hope to have monitored by good doctors, at least one massage therapist, an osteopath, and an acupuncturist)–I look forward to watching, with the rest of my baby-boom generation, just how we’ll integrate the traditional with the folkloric and non-conventional.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to keep taking my kids to our Manhattan “integral” physician (who practices homeopathy and has a D.O. in osteopathy), and cool it on trying to bolster their immune systems myself.

The healthiest thing I can do, in all likelihood, is teach my children to enjoy exercise, eat their vegetables, and drink good old fashioned chicken soup.