How Far Do You Let Them Be Themselves

I was talking to a friend at work last week and telling her my little story of what my son was doing and here is what the conversation was like. Me: The family was driving to the store and my two kids were in the back yelling at each other, so I turned around to tell them to knock it off and my son had this ring in his nose. I said take that out of your nose! Turned back around and a few mintues later had to turn around to tell them to stop and he had the ring on his lip. I said would you not wear that ring!! My husband than informs me that I can blame him for that because he bought it for him! So my question is how far do you let them be themselves? After all my friend thought it was pretty funny! Well than I was telling her how my son thinks he's a punk! Well after all my husband is a want to be biker! He wants to get his ear pierced. I have two ear piercing and have wanted to get a third for a while, but my husband informed me if I get a third than he gets to have his. I am not sure about this. So my friend said why not let him. Now you make me sound like I control my husband! So if I go and get my third piercing and my husband gets his pierce and my daughter wants her's done again than I would probably have to let my youngest son get his done as well! He also has been wanting his ear pierced for a while too I think because his friend has his pierced. I had my daugters pierced once before and she had an infection and I had to take her to the doctors to have cut out and she ended up with stictches. I remember a while back they had this commercial for drugs saying let you kids be who they are, but know where they are going and who there friends are. I told my husband when he was going through this want to be biker thing that just because I like goth doesn't mean I am going to die my hair black and dress in dark clothes and wear black lipstick! I guess it could be worse though at least he isn't going out and cheating on me or buying a sports car or anything like that. Mid life crisis sometimes can be pretty bad so I guess I am pretty lucky. So I should tell my husband to go get his ear pierced, but how far do I let my kids express themselves? Piercing don't really bother me when it isn't over kill, but I don't think I would go as far as letting them pierce anything but their ears. So when life throws you for a loop do you just go with the flow and say it is just a faze? How far do you let them carry it out? I guess each generation there is some fade that you feel like you have to be like everyone else to fit in, but than again fades come and go and come back again! There are some I would just like to forget and hope they never come back. So let them be who they are and figure it will be over soon!