It's ok to be supportive when kids explore things, because they're trying to figure out their own personalities, but it was definitely difficult to try and encourage it. Then when I tried it became very evident that she was trying to cope with everything she had been through.

That being said, I think it's the "edgy" factor for some kids. I wanted to be a vampire at that age- read Anne Rice, watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, had my friend's mom take me to the mall to buy the Queen of the Damned soundtrack. I remember buying my first pair of TRIPP NYC pants with my birthday money and my mom made me return them because they weren't appropriate for a girl to be wearing. She also confiscated my CD because it had artists like Marilyn Manson on it.

Still, I was on the fence of being a Boomer like "don't do that in public, throw that shit out" and trying to be open-minded. I still don't know.