Rob Reiner was a bad parent; I’m not surprised his kid killed him
South Park episode “Butt Out” which makes fun of Rob Reiner’s self-delusion.
Rob Reiner is a famous director and he’s dead. You probably knew him from his movies This is Spinal Tap and When Harry Met Sally. Now you’ll know him because his son, Nick Reiner, killed his parents by slitting their throats.
The past two days have been filled with celebrations of the great Rob Reiner which seem completely tone deaf to me. Rob’s first job was to be a good parent to his son and he was a bad parent.
We know Rob was a bad parent because by age 15 Nick, the middle son, had already been in and out of rehab for meth, heroin and cocaine. Nick has said that he didn’t bond with his dad when he was young. What was Rob doing while he had a 13-year-old son becoming an addict? Rob stopped directing movies and gave himself to public advocacy leading South Park creators to devote an entire episode to Rob’s hypocritical moralizing.
I’m sure Nick’s parents thought they’d be judged by their most successful kids. But actually, parents are best judged by their least successful kid, because that’s the kid who absorbed the family’s trauma so everyone else could flourish. Nick’s siblings complained about the anger he expressed toward their parents. Of course that bothered the siblings: they were parented differently; they were not addicted to drugs as middle schoolers.
In case you had any doubt about the core rot of the relationship between Rob and Nick, look at the film they made together. Nick wrote an autobiographical script about his childhood addiction. His dad directed the film — literally ensuring he had the last say over Nick’s story.
There is no scenario where it was appropriate for Rob to direct that film. He has plenty of connections, plenty of money, he could have set Nick up with a director who didn’t have conflicted interests. He could have given Nick the opportunity to direct. And in fact, Nick’s sister wrote three scripts that were directed by people who were not her father.
There’s new research from Harvard about how important it is for children to feel like their parents adjust relationships and routines based on a child’s actions. A child’s feeling that they matter to their parents starts during infancy and impacts their actions for their entire life. When Nick’s parents talk about how they did everything possible for him, they never talk about their attention before Nick was an addict, only after.
If you want to find out how much Rob thinks Nick matters, check out this interview with the two of them as they’re promoting the movie. Theoretically, this is where they are getting along and supporting each other. But actually, Rob dominates the conversation, he speaks for his son, and you can see his son is completely disengaged when his father is talking. None of this is working, but Rob can’t stop promoting.
It’s hard to tell if Rob’s promoting the movie or himself. He says he’s a better dad now because he understands his son more. But he can’t even sense when his son is moving his mic around trying to get a word in. Nick cannot even get Rob to shut up when they are talking about Nick’s story.
Here’s why it’s important to judge Rob Reiner’s parenting. First, he made himself a public advocate for other people to start being better parents, then he messed up his kid’s childhood and did a PR campaign telling people that he was a bad father but now he’s a good father. So Rob sets himself up to be judged.
Today news outlets sing praises for Rob Reiner’s storytelling and talk about Nick like he’s a sociopath when in fact, I think it’s probably the other way around.
This is absolutely ridiculous and disgusting for you to put in words so soon after this gruesome double murder. You have no idea what the situation entails and you seem perfectly ok to excuse someone’s ABSOLUTELY PSYCHOTIC BEHAVIOR. You literally call rob reiner a sociopath and say his son isn’t one. Gee – I tend to think people who slit the throats of their parents are, at the very least, sociopaths. Who the fuck are you to be saying any of this. Of what possible value are you in this situation other than to stir the pot like a fucking ghoul.
Okay. I think the last sentence was probably too much. I liked the symmetry. But I also liked the irony that in the movie Rob is using Nick’s story. But fine. I should not have ended with that. The rest, I think is okay. I am not condoning killing parents. I’m not trying to judge that. I’m trying to say that it doesn’t make sense to me to talk about how great a person Rob is and how crazy his kid is. It’s obviously not that cut and dried.
Way to Go Penelope you are a gifted and brilliantly insightful person a natural born advocate. I’m very proud of you. You are extroadinarily brave!
My comments didn’t make it in. What a shame. Well I was going to elaborate. Rob Reiner was a great parent. But we exist where we exist. We are awake to a degree and aware at that position. That’s all hopefully we learn. But regardless mr and mrs Reiner did not do anything to have happen to them what happened. You should never kill anything. The whole thing is lost. We lost one of the good guys. We lost a champion advocate his wife and his son.
I actually agree with this and think that this is a brave stance. Whilst people are reacting with emotion because a legendary icon was taken from us, you nail everything that I wish I could’ve said but glad you did.
To anyone who is freaking out, I urge people to go back and reread this again and ask themselves what they don’t see on the surface.
You were very much judging and in a truly despicable way. I suggest you go look at yourself and what is wrong with you instead of judging someone else who is no longer alive to defend himself (though he would not bother).
well, someone needs to stand up for kids who were/are singled out, mistreated, and scapegoated, so thanks for giving it a go. they really have nowhere to go and no one to turn to, especially if they have “beloved” parents who don’t care for them. i imagine he’s been trying to speak out his whole life, but no one in hollywood will stand up to a director who might help his or her career. also, most directors aren’t that nice? look at what they do for a living. we’ll never know what really happened here or who was to blame. you’re right to point out the inconsistencies.
There are a lot of things you brought up that I noticed as well. It’s a horrible situation all the way around. But, one has to ask if Nick got sent to rehab the 1st time at 15 years old, that is a last resort. So, when did he start using drugs? 12? 13? Something is missing here. Did something happen to him such as abuse when he was young and his mind was fractured? That could be a possibility. Why didn’t Rob bond with his own son? There is never an explanation. Nick also made a comment in the video that Rob followed along with the orders of what Michele said. Why? What is Nick saying here? That was weird. There is much more to this story, but if it will ever be known, we have to wait and see.
I think everything you said was spot on including the last sentence people are just reacting and they’re not actually reading what is available which contradicts that glorification of the parents it’s a tragic situation but it’s primarily tragic for Nick Reiner
parents are no longer suffering. Siblings have a lot of opportunity to recover, but his life is over at a very young age.
Mental illness is a very serious problem, and our society is completely barbaric the way we treat it
Penelope, i like your comment. i relate. Last two sentences—bottom line. The Reiner situation, the family, was complicated. Families are often complicated. If i knew nothing else but just the nature of the killings, that an adult son took a knife to his parents’ throats, leaving them dead, then i would wonder what was going on there, as well as feeling bad about the obvious suffering.
If you had a parent like Reiner, you’d agree with PT. 100%. Rob is a hypocrite and didn’t deserve to be stabbed to death. He did however LET his young son go homeless; Do you know what happens to young kids who go homeless? Holy crap. You could not keep me from helping my child if they were homeless. The mitigating circumstances during the punishment penalty of the trial should be very interesting. You’re not a psycho, PT. In fact, anyone saying that about you is probably a terrible parent and they know it. You really helped me up my parenting skills as a single mom who took a huge cut in pay to help my kid adjust by putting her in school from home. We were broke and are still behind on certain things (home repairs), but kid is in college and a very happy adult.
Our children are our priorities we cannot play favorites or leave them out in the cold or make fun of their pain or take them out and ignore the ridicule.
I think psychopaths can appear like the good guys but not bonding with their child is a sign or laughing it off is dangerous. These kids nowadays have not had the support even the previous generation had. And to think all of those so called friends sat by and ignored it. Typical money and fame are more important than people. I wish he would not have killed them. He could not find a way to get away or change things. You know how the group like that can bully or be strong in numbers. I doubt one of them believes in Jesus Christ. When others are meek or let the hurt one grow or be strong. The reason he probably asked “Barry” if he was famous is because instead of why? A group decides who and why a person can be famous… as if they are playing God. They aren’t Gods though. They can rule people but they can change the world but they cannot really love adversity. They only can try to denigrate it.
Love conquers all. Adversity, freedom, and recognition are something that everyone especially famous people need to see ..need to allow… people have a right to… be appreciated and admired for their lives too.
You try having an addicted, violent child who repeatedly leaves the rehab you have arranged for them, and then you have a right to judge. That the best choice then is to enable his addiction and tolerate his violence as he wrecks their home in his rages, as he admitted to (though it sounded more like bragging) is ridiculous. The term is ‘tough love’.
So what would you have done with this child? Don’t you think the child was a sociopath? You can’t really fix that
We can have a conversation about bad parenting when Nick is young without talking about Nick’s bad behavior when he was older. They are two separate topics. People conflate the two in order to give parents a pass for doing a bad job with young kids.
💯agree
No Phil you are the reason Rob and Michelle are dead my dear. Your brain is stuck at the flintstones house darling Penelope is absolutely brilliant and absolutely correct do you know somebody wants told me if you blow somebody’s candle out yours doesn’t get brighter it’s very difficult to be the child of someone that is as beloved and as well accomplished as Rob Reiner was what needed to happen was probably Nic needed to be a valuated and perhaps he knows he should’ve had a business started for him or he should go to college and why didn’t they send him to college instead of rehab you know they just kept reinforcing that he was broken and really not liberating him you know after five or six or seven rehab visits we’re gonna figure this shits not working anymore or never did this must not be the problem thank you for allowing me to respond
They did not send him to college because he was so stoned that he had dropped out of high school. He WAS broken by his addiction.
He was addicted because he was a sociopath. They can’t bond or feel love and reach for thrills and extremes. They get dopamine hits from risky behavior to quell their endless void of boredom. This is typical of sociopaths
Young children are not sociopaths. Sociopathy doesn’t suddenly appear; there are signs of cruelty or misconduct as a child that parents can address.While a genetic predisposition exists, severe trauma, abuse, neglect, or inconsistent parenting in early life significantly contribute, leading to the emergence of sociopath behavior later in life. Rob has already said he was a bad parent early in Nick’s life. We are judging Rob as a parent of a young boy. It’s not hard to make this judgment. Being a bad parent when kids are young has lasting impact.
Seriously I love reading stories about addiction from someone who has never gone through it ever. And no you have not so don’t lie now and say you have !! Also the worst thing is blaming someone else. This is all NICKs fault and no one else’s. No one NOT ONE person forced him to behave the way he did and no one Not One person ever made him do drugs. He chose to do so. No one ever made me take a hand full of pills and OD. No One ever made me think the thoughts I had. I did it. No one ever made me feel the way I felt – I DID it !! I take responsibility for all my actions and it’s all my fault it happen. Not my parents fault. Not my siblings. Not the bully’s in school or classroom for of kids .. ME. I did everything to myself or against myself. So please give me a break lady !!
I believe there is a lot missing about Nicks childhood Rob talked over. Rob is stuck on his production and self- that’s obvious.He should have let Nick talk- and shut up. I believe both parents drank. Parties in Hollywood yes- they drink-maybe even more. Why didn’t he have elementary school activities and middle school activities? I don’t get what’s missing. I believe his brother and sisters know a little bit more.
These are great questions I asked myself as well. We need more discussion of how important after school activities are. School is built like a factory. It’s draining for kids. They need to play and have fun and be replenished, and kids don’t play outside with all the other kids in the neighborhood anymore. So they need something. It’s neglect to put a kid in school for eight hours a day and then give them no means of self-expression via community connection after school.
When I was doing research at Harvard about parenting I was shocked by how many studies measure community-bases activities (as opposed to home or school) as a way to measure effective parenting. Everyone need to know these measures because they could act as scaffolding for parenting.
And why did the studied pick those programs to look at… I bet it deals with funding and how those studies were funded as well as many of the programs.
What I am finding interesting is you went to Harvard and conduct research there as well in this area and her leave that part out. I did not obtain my MA from such a prestigious school, state and CA, but does H and your area of study really allow you to not address those factors at all?
That you were shocked but didn’t look into why those studies happened that way is concerning for me at what Harvard teaches research and writing wise as well as what is accepts..
No one has EVER said that they did not take their children, including Nick, to activities. You are making stuff up so you can blame THE VICTIMS.
Maybe his kids have entries in their diaries like ashley biden…reiner is on the epstein list maybe his son was tired of being raped by him/others.. dems rape little girls/boys including their own offspring…just saying
I was thinking of deleting this comment because I can’t find evidence that Reiner was on the Epstein list. But then I realized, there is all sort of speculation in the media about Nick. Maybe he was an impossible kid from the start, maybe he was violent his whole life, blah blah. I think it’s good for people to see the opposite speculation.
Yes timing is a little off but I too concur about the importance of spending time with your childre. Seems Nick was almost forced to live with his parents since his childhood education was abducted. Sending children away from the family for professionals to correct any deficiencies is obviously not a viable solution either.. Super sad story all around..
It just that there’s a list of behaviors here that are very distinguishing as being common in development in the behavior of a individual who have experienced a particular typo of trauma since childhood and through some adulthood , yet not usually to this late of an age as Nick. It’s all very sad but by the truth we can learn not to do what causes the pains inside of our children to experience such tragedies like this . God help us all
Genuinely, seek therapy. What a horrible person you are.
She’s blunt and that doesn’t make her mentally ill. Just stop. Some of you clearly did not abusive parents. It shows.
I’m inclined to believe the opposite. I think a lot of people cover up for their own nasty upbringings. How many people say stuff like “I was a little POS when I was a kid and I deserved to get my butt whooped! My folks absolutely did their best!”
If that was their parents’ best, then of course they’ll defend the Reiners.
Holy shit you’re insufferable.
Sometimes we have to be blunt. The interview of Rob and Nick Reiner was painful to watch. Rob was busy narrating a story. Nick listened, detached, seemingly unemotional, occasionally offering a disjointed aside. Mostly, he seemed unable to do much more than stare blankly as his father sucked all the oxygen out of the room, all to make the point that Being Charlie put things on track and made up for all past mistakes. What were those mistakes? According to Reiner, the mistakes boiled down to listening to the advice of others rather than his own parenting instincts. Of course, where were those instincts before Nick became a 13-year old drug addict living a wild life without meaningful adult supervision? You have it exactly right: in Rob Reiner’s mind, the relationship with his son on appeared post-addiction, with no mention of how it got to that horrible place. It also seemed clear from Nick’s affect that he might have — drug induced or not — some serious cognitive impairment. Flat affect. Unable to connect with the interviewer emotionally. Not reading cues. Were signs of mental or emotional problems missed by his parents?
Every parent has lapses, shortcomings, failures to see. After all, we’re human. But to have a child go off the rails this severely, this early is extreme. Let’s not lose sight of the parenting lessons in all the rush to celebrate professional accomplishments.
Thank you for saying it so calmly. I’m obviously not as calm about it. Though I think it takes someone feeling very strongly about the situation to post this angle to begin with.
Well said, sir.
I think, as so often is the case on social media, people are giving reactionary comments with very little facts to go on.
It’s SO easy to say, “Oh, Reiner should have done this or done that”, and in hindsight, I’m sure that’s true. In hindsight, there are a lot of warning signs in all of our lives that could have helped us avoid a lot of pain.
But at the end of the day, we are all human and we are all imperfectly floating around in this imperfect world.
We all need a little more grace from one another.
This was disappointing to read from you, Penelope. I would have been interested to read a thoughtful negative take but this was just unnuanced and makes me worry about how you are doing.
you’ve got no right to pass judgement towards a situation you know nothing about- are you a therapist who has worked directly with this family? I didn’t think so. to say that Rob was a “bad parent “ is pretty short fucking sighted and two dimensional thinking. Adjust your speech and maybe I’ll listen more closely to you. For now -fuck your lame ass article
We can judge people by their actions and what they say in public. We might not know everything about them. But we have enough information from Rob and Nick themselves to know that Rob did not form a bond with Nick when he was young. Rob was traveling all over the country when Nick was using drugs in middle school. And when Nick wrote a screenplay about his relationship with his father, Rob took it over instead of paying to get the movie made with another director which is what he did for his daughter. We can draw conclusions based on these actions. This is not to say every action from Rob was bad. But this doesn’t stack up to be a good parent.
Absolutely disgusting and presumptuous! You should be ashamed.
You’re a sicko and a sociopath. Nobody deserves to die because they made mistakes as a parent. As parents, we love our children for who they are and we do everything we can to help them succeed. Even the “worst” parents will tell you that. You are obviously either too young, too stupid and definitely not a parent to write shit like this.
She never said he deserved to die. Read it again.
It seems that this article is attempting to point out that Rob Reiner shouldn’t be upheld as a model parent (valid criticism) but instead suggests that killing your Dad is a reasonable response (insane take). The suggestion that Rob was a sociopath and his son’s actions were justified demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of mental health, culpability, trauma and personal responsibility. I don’t understand what you were trying to do and it’s quite tone deaf in the immediate aftermath of a tragic murder.
Yeah. I wish I didn’t have the last line. I think you’re right — I wanted to just talk about the dad’s actions. I don’t want to defend killing someone. But I do want to stop the knee-jerk reaction that when a kid kills the parent the kid is terrible and the parent is purely a victim. Did we learn nothing from the Menendez family?
>em dash
This is ai written ragebait
What would the Reiners needed to do to prevent this from happening?
Secondly, but more importantly, how can parent learn to develop the huge amount of love to do the things necessary to bond with their difficult, different, or defiant child?
That’s a great question. Bonding with a child starts very early. But when Nick was born both parents were very involved with activities outside the home. It’s impossible to believe that Nick was using drugs and not looking wierd as a middle schooler. So that tells me the parents were not around enough to notice. Parenting starts with emotional and physical presence. And with presence parents can develop empathy. For lots of parents this is really hard. But as a society we should demand it from all families.
There is a great book that I highly recommend for anyone wanting to learn how sociopaths are created; I actually think everyone should read it, especially anyone that will have children. It’s titled, “High Risk-Children Without a Conscience”.
My first thoughts when I learned of this tragedy (aside from deep sadness and sympathy for all involved), was what were Nick’s early childhood developmental years like? Does anyone know? It seems that something must have happened to him during that time.
Let’s see. For one, how about ya understand that putting your kid out at such a young age does not make thou father of the year or anything close to it. There’s addiction and then there’s complete neglect. Poor kid. Never stood a chance.
Nick had all his life to make choices that benefited him. If his father was so aweful he could have built a life separate and independent. I loose sympathy for him after 25.
Lots of people have god aweful relationships with thier parents and don’t kill. In fact the majority don’t kill.
How’s your relationship with your parents. This post is a little weird
My point here is that the deluge of Rob-is-great media right now doesn’t make sense. There is plenty of evidence that he was not a great person. I’m pointing out the evidence that he wasn’t a great father. I think most of us need help parenting. We need to talk about it more.
I agree. Beginning with birth- c-section? medicated birth? the trauma of circumcision, whether a child is breastfed, whether they have an uninterrupted, healthy bond with at least one consistent, loving caregiver from birth to age 5, whether they are put in early daycare, how they are treated, how they are shown affection & love, whether they are nurtured emotionally and intellectually, etc. We have a nation full of young adults in mental health crisis situations, drug addiction, committing horrifying acts of violence and I would bet everything on the way people are parenting (or neglecting them) them while they are in their developmental years.
Let’s see. For one, how about ya understand that putting your kid out at such a young age does not make thou father of the year or anything close to it. There’s addiction and then there’s complete neglect. Poor kid. Never stood a chance. Nick never learned how to raise himself much less be parented by his father who is a megalomaniac.
Wow you’re an idiot! There’s too much stupidity here to even argue, other than to say patricide would be through the roof if your argument held any weight at all.
I think Rob didn’t bond in a true parent sense to his son and more so in a narcissistic way. I don’t think Rob is a bad person but it’s clear he does not seem to truly connect with his son based in that dual interview. It was very strange and awkward interview and Rob keeps trying to smooth over the interview because he wants so bad for his son to be “a winner” and not a loser drug addict. Sad thing is, Nick is an addict and that’s all he ever was and will be and because Rob didn’t accept this and was clearly in denial and lacking empathy for his son, it snowballed into hatred from his son, and now a murder.
The impression I got from that interview was that it wasn’t that he wanted his son to come out as a “winner,” but he wanted to the world to see him as a “winner parent.” That interview says it all.
Yeah, I agree. It’s so unbelievably transparent. It reminds me of all the parents I see in other circumstances who behave the same way. And, in the same ways, people who are watching say nothing. That’s the part I can’t stand. I want so much for us to be able to help each other in the moment when we see it.
Bingo!
I stumbled in here (lucky me I think! I’ll be reading more of your posts later!) and you NAILED exactly what I have been thinking about this terrible situation; most specifically that movie they made!
This is actually a psychotic take! Also you know nothing about how entertainment works. Rob’s involvement as a director is the whole reason the movie even got made.
Reading the reviews, apparently the script was pretty bad, which is what Nick wrote. Given the budget was only 2 million – in 2015, mind you! – there’s no way anyone else would’ve been able to get it made. It was obviously a labor of love, a bonding opportunity with his kid and a chance to show him support. But I guess you can twist it into something else like the writer did if you really tried.
Penelope,
Leaving space for your analysis being correct; also leaving space for your analysis being the result of the circumstantial evidence you present. As always, appreciate your take.
Patty
What a horribly unproven perspective. You have at best circumstantial information to support your assertions, but certainly hold to the problematic at best trope that how kids turn out is all about the parents. I know it’s an opinion piece, but it’s lazy and lame
I cancelled your newsletter today after your vicious judgmental comments abt Rob Reiner’s parenting
Completely disagree with you. The interview was painful to watch. The kid is a sociopath! I honestly despise your take on the situation.
That’s a pretty harsh take. Do we know how they wanted to be judged as parents? Everyone has demons and all can’t be controlled. Having a struggling child does not make one a bad parent. Abandoning said child does. They never did this.
I won’t pretend to believe I knew what kind of parents they were, but your “evidence” doesn’t support your premise.
Rob could have been a self-important, narcissist who locked Nick in the basement for all I know. But the fact that South Park lampooned him and Rob directed the movie mean little.
Maybe Nick wanted him to direct the movie. Maybe Nick was a non-functioning imbecile that couldn’t get a word out in an interview.
I’m completely guessing, like you did.
Good parents can raise people who become addicts and murderers. Bad parents can raise people who change the world in positive ways.
Bad parents don’t necessarily deserve to be murdered. Bad parents who made positive contributions to others deserve to be mourned.
That’s what I was thinking, how does she know Nick didn’t want Rob to direct the movie? Oh yeah, he should’ve just hired a director cos there’s always a line of talented people who want to take on a bad script of a creepy nepo baby.
Well said! When I was writing the post I was thinking: can you imagine Sophia Coppola handing her dad a script and he directs it? Francis Ford Coppola is so incredibly successful and visionary that it would have looked absurd if he directed Sophia’s scripts — they are not organic to him. And the same is true with Rob. It’s just absurd.
Thank you, but I totally disagree with you. As for what’s organic for Coppola, luckily directing Jack must have been so.
Anyway, what a silly comparison. Sofia is one of the most successful nepo babies ever. And Nick… there’s no reason to believe anyone but his father would have touched his halfbaked script, quite the opposite, but somehow you’re judging Rob so harshly for going an extra mile for Nick – who might have demanded it for all we know.
All your points are valid. However, the focus has been on what a wonderful human he was and what an incredible talent he was. There is no guessing involved when it comes to the bias of the reporting.
What hateful, cruel, poorly-reasoned, and utterly bizarre piece of writing. It’s possible Rob Reiner was a bad parent, but it’s certain that you are a bad person.
Fuck yes. I have done many years of childhood trauma work, and I can say with absolute certainty that kids don’t just kill their parents because their parents did a good job raising them.
I hate how this story is framed from the perspective that some rich people were killed by their ungrateful drug addicted child. Like it’s just one more thing for rich people to worry about. First we got a socialist mayor, and now this!
I hate how the WSJ reported that the last time they were all seen together was at a fancy party with A-list celebs, and how Nick harshed their vibe by asking people if they were famous. Like, he’s so rude! And so embarrassing for the parents! See the horseshit they had to endure from him???
No mention that doing this at a party full of A-Listers would be funny as hell. And no attention was drawn to the fact that Nick was asked to leave, but his parents stayed at the party. That must’ve felt isolating as fuck for Nick.
If my kid was having a hard time at a party and was kicked out, I certainly wouldn’t let them leave on their own. They’re still my responsibility even though they are adults. I just wish his parents saw him as actually being their responsibility, instead of as an embarrassment.
It’s clear his parents were busy chasing power, money, and fame. That’s all we hear about. Not a peep about how a 15-year-old had the money and lack of adult supervision that allowed him to get addicted to heroin. I think that’s the real story right there.
He really does look like a beautiful kid. It’s so sad to see him demonized like this.
Thank you. There is so much more to say. Thank you for saying more.
Thank you both for your thoughts. I’ve been thinking much of what you e been saying. I’m sad but about the whole thing – and I think that’s the key. Nick had so much trauma. His parents didn’t deserve to die . His siblings are dealing with unthinkable reality right now.
As you’ve said, there’s so much more to this incredibly nuanced part of life .
Thanks for writing it.
You’ve got quite a few facts wrong here. For starters, it”s been reported the whole reason his parents brought him to the party was so that they could keep an eye on him because they were worried about him. Also, he didn’t get kicked out and they stayed there and partied with their friends. Apparently, the Reiners left before he did after Rob and Nick got into a fight. Nick stayed for a bit longer, continued acting in an unusual manner then left in a huff.
This is my favorite response. Perfectly laid out. It’s a shame so many on here just don’t get it.
Not only it’s factually all wrong, as another commenter pointed out, it’s nonsensical. The „kid” was in some serious mental episode, and that’s why it was creepy and not funny as hell, he even started arguments with some other people.
WHY would you drag your drug addicted son to a fancy Hollywood party where you KNOW there will be a million triggers and temptations for him everywhere, if youre so “worried” about him? Performative, selfish nonsense is what that WAS because the Reiners cared about their celebrity friends, parties and their images more than their own son. If they were so “worried” then why didn’t they hire a private bodyguard to babysit him at home? Lack of funds? Why didnt they SKIP the party altogether? I mean, we all know how important CHRISTMAS PARTIES ARE TO JEWS 😆
I think the real issue here, is a bunch of butthurt boomer parents are reflexively feeling hyper defensive, in lieu of thinking critically about the situation. Much easier to label Nick a one dimensional evil sociopath and Rob as the perfect Saint, bc its uncomfortable to admit that you were DUPED by a class A bullshitter.
That’s just useless speculation that if they all sat at home it would have been better. I won’t even comment on hiring a bodyguard (?) to take care of an addict at home. You don’t know how the guy had acted before, also he’s 32. Have it crossed your mind maybe Nick wanted to go to that party?
It’s much easier to label an entire family as evil for going to a party in their neighborhood and even laugh that they went to a christmas party as jews, than admit you can’t always predict bad things and mental episodes, and that at some points family members aren’t responsible for a member’s deeds.
All your points are valid. However, the focus has been on what a wonderful human he was and what an incredible talent he was. There is no guessing involved when it comes to the bias of the reporting.
You have zero understanding of the causes and treatments for addiction you cretin. Stfu
This is such a bad take that I felt compelled to respond. You know absolutely nothing about Rob as a parent. Reading your post, your moralizing seems to be based on Rob’s success, a south park episode, a 20 minute interview on Youtube and the fact that Nick developed drug problems in early adolescence. Even worse than taking a complex situation and falsely portraying it as a simple function of ‘bad parenting,’ you seem to exonerate Nick with half-baked concepts (“absorbing the family trauma so that others could flourish”). Was Rob a bad parent or was Nick a bad son? Either answer is stupid – just like this post.
Oh, I see. But you in all of your butthurt DEFINITELY KNOW more than she does, because you loved Spinal Tap and Whe. Harry Met Sally.
Its a sign of really low intelligence to reflexively respond with emotional charged hyperbole instead of addressing the valid points that she made.
Grow up.
Thank you, Jennifer. Your ability to respond to my comment was a sign of your very high intelligence.
I knew you’d be getting heat for this post, and I knew there would be people hysterically telling you what a terrible take it was and how awful you are. It is a terribly sad situation, and yep maybe seems a bit early to be doing this type of analysis. But if people have been reading your blog for a long time, they would know that you are always looking for the lessons, particularly for parenting and providing kids with the best foundations.
“A child’s feeling that they matter to their parents starts during infancy and impacts their actions for their entire life” will sit with me for a long time. I have 3 kids ( 10, 8 and 6) and I feel like I”m being a fair and loving parent to all of them equally. But at the same time lately I can see my middle kid questioning more and more whether we care about her and saying things that her other sisters never do “I know you hate me, I know you don’t care about me”. She’s an amazing kid with a vibrant internal world – but she pushes the boundaries and challenges authority which means we clash in ways that don’t happen with her sisters. I worry about how connected she feels and try my best to make sure I reinforce that she’s important to me and loved. Whilst I don’t think we are on the “heroin addiction at 13” pathway, its still a good reminder to keep reflecting on my relationships with my kids individually and ensuring they have the emotional support and connection they need.
This sentence from Penelope’s post really resonated with me: “There’s new research from Harvard about how important it is for children to feel like their parents adjust relationships and routines based on a child’s actions.” I wonder if using that lens to look at your middle child might be useful?
Needless to say, I don’t respect someone famous who commits crimes or wife batters, and I might ostracize or “cancel” someone who was bad.
Meanwhile, by one scenario, it is a universal balance that one can’t be abnormal in effort or fame without being less normal in another area, as in, say, pro X stars having bad domestic relationships caught on camera. (Of course there are other scenarios)
Hence the saying in Britain, “No man is a hero to his valet” (personal attendant)
By this reasoning, it’s common to be glossing over a fellow’s everyday life and simply saying, with awe, that he’s great at what he does…
Nobody knows the secret life of circus performers, but when they come to town, displaying excellence, I can be inspired to reevaluate my normal life, as when every four years I see an amateur (NOT a professional) Olympian.
Penelope,
Has it occurred to you that it’s possible to feel compassion for Nick AND Rob and Michelle (though you don’t seem curious about her as a parent) all at the same time?
If you are distressed that a tormented son is being demonized, why is your knee jerk reaction to demonize his father? Is empathy a zero sum game?
You say there is enough public evidence to pass judgment but that’s only true if you take some parasocial distaste you have for Rob Reiner (South Park allusion) and turn it into your own fantasy script of his family dynamics. Parts of your analysis of his parental failures might be accidentally correct, but you didn’t arrive at them in any serious way.
Maybe try just feeling sad at this tragedy without whipping up a narrative out of thin air to suit your particular prejudices.
Even if Rob was a narcissistic parent who failed Nick, does that make him worse than the grown man who committed a double homicide? I know you’re not outright condoning murder, but low key it sounds like you’re saying Rob sort of deserved to die for the crime of being a shitty (according to you) parent. The vast majority of parents in the world, I would argue, are shitty on some level. There is a difference between making excuses for that and simply acknowledging with humility that we make profound mistakes in life. We still deserve grace and should extend it to others.
Was it you or one of your commenters that brought up the Menendez brothers? Seriously? That conflation is appalling and you must know that. There is zero evidence that Rob and Michelle were abusive at all much less on that level.
Look, Nick did an absolutely monstrous thing. Is he now reduced to being a monster? Was he always a monster? I don’t see it that way.
Or maybe a sociopath? Addicts often lack empathy in certain states of addiction so that may or may not be his basic psychology. We don’t know. It’s all speculation.
If he IS capable of empathy and remorse, his chronic suffering has now exponentially increased, regardless of what punishment he receives. I don’t believe in the death penalty so I hope it’s not that.
I can simultaneously be revolted by what he has done and sympathetically imagine what led him to that dark, dark place.
But right now it’s understandably hard for many people to feel for him because Rob and Michelle have just endured the ultimate horror. They didn’t deserve that. And my heart breaks for them and their other two surviving children.
I think we all want to believe that if we make all the right choices we’ll avoid terrible things in our lives. And so we tell ourselves the terrible things in other people’s lives must be a result of their bad decisions or character or whatever. It’s the Just World Fallacy. Call it that or blaming the victim, but either way, we don’t have the control we wish we did.
So we should let our existential vulnerability make us more, not less compassionate.
Wow. You sound like a person who really enjoys the smell of their own farts. 😒🙄
Yeah, my first instinct as a parent is to make a movie detailing my own junkie sons personal failures, and go on a phony public press tour essentially humble bragging about what a great father i am NOW that I listened to myself, instead of the “no nothing experts”
Or the Comedy Roasts in which numerous friends of his, made disgusting jokes about Rob Reiner molesting little kids, including his own, on National Television as Rob sat back and laughed.
What a peach. I would be torally THRILLED if my dad did that to me.
Jennifer, your comment is quite problematic, but why are you even skipping over the fact that it was Nick who wrote the screenplay and wanted to make a movie out of his “adventures”?
However, I’m very sorry that a comedy roast from 25 years ago made such a mark on your psyche. I’m sure that it scarred the children for life.
I don’t know these people at all. I haven’t read any coverage of what’s taken place. I think that probably makes me more objective than prior commenters.
I work as a lawyer in child sex abuse helping survivors obtain compensation as adults for what happened to them. Most of my clients are incarcerated men. Some of them are in prison for murder. Some specifically for murdering their abusers. Almost all of them struggle or have struggled with substance abuse issues. And all of them – no exception – had god awful parents. Ranging from severely negligent, completely absent (in the fostercare system, raised by next of kins, run aways, etc..), to extreme physical and sexual abuse you could not imagine. You don’t get to sexually abuse a child unless the parent has completely checked out. It’s too hard to access the child or get away with it (unless they’re your own).
Many of my clients view their parents as accomplices in their sexual abuse, enabling or facilitating it through their parenting, or lack there of. Many feel relieved when their parents die (however they may die). They wish them dead even if not through their own will.
It takes an extreme amount of abuse for a child to kill their parents. Extreme.
God knows what these two did to Nick, but you can see in the angry comments why no one ever helped him.
Thank you. I could not understand the comments full of hatred and personal insult, just because someone disagreed. But I understand that people choose to not see what they have decided to ignore.
Penelope speaks covenantally rather than in terms of sentiment. She is similar to the late theologian Gary North in that regard. She speaks in terms of authority and sanctions rather than emotions. She speaks with the five-point covenantal model in mind, even if not consciously aware of it.
Murder is a terrible thing and never to be condoned. That said, I believe it is very likely, that the parenting was hugely amiss here. People don’t just become alcoholic and drug dependent out of thin air. Nick states out loud that he never had a bond with his father and he watched his father bond with his brother. Huge statement right there. Imagine the ongoing pain of that. I worked as a Probation Officer with youths for many years and in every single situation, there was bad parenting involved. Every time.
Bravo. Finally someone brave enough to cut through the bs and tell the truth that is so obvious to anyone also coming from a toxic family. Very typical those highly successful Hollywood families having one scapegoat who suffers for them all. I also suspect of the oh so lovely outside Tom Hanks who also has a very troubled son. Please disregard the enraged comments here posted by alienated, hypocrytical people with zero knowledge on family internal systems, trauma or toxic dynamics, you are telling the truth. You angry people posting here should see therapy for all the skeletons you have in the closet!
Thank you Penelope. I am sick of the news coverage of St.Rob. Blaming this on mental illness or even drugs makes me sick. Nick looks like a lost child. Not justifying murder but what led up to the extreme hurt and desperation?
It is telling that you have discounted the statements of two of the Reiner’s children, which express what wonderful parents they were and focus on the addiction and addiction-fueled behavior of one child. There are a myriad of reasons why a person develops an addiction that do not implicate the person’s parenting. And once a person develops an addiction, the impacts of the drug use can fundamentally alter the person’s neurological and chemical systems and incite all sorts of heinous behavior. That you would post such unscientifically-based diatribe against two people about whom you know very little indicates an underlying agenda. And i agree with prior comments about how distasteful a thing this is to do.
Penelope loves to be provocative and make dramatic claims. Remember when she wrote that
Sharon Sandberg’s husband’s committed suicide? Her proof was he had gained weight in the past year based on photos, which, okay– but it is quite a jump to say he must have been depressed and committed suicide. Her valid critique of Sandberg’s lean in bullshit did not need to be wrapped into “she is such a fraud her husband committed suicide, and she is trying to keep it a secret!”
I think this post would have been better if there was an acknowledgement of Penelope’s own experience as a victim of family trauma and abuse, which likely is affecting her opinion on this. Did she ever want to slice her father’s throat?
From what she has written over the years, Penelope put her sons in situations that some might not think are healthy or stable (absent bio dad, chaotic marriage to the farmer, housing issues, financial challenges, relocations, Penelope’s mental health episodes), but I would never presume to know how much of a nightmare she was for her kids and immediately blame her if one of her offspring did something heinous!
I think it is fine to be critical of the reaction about what a great guy RR was, but the tone of certainty in this post is quite off putting.
None of us know how good of a dad RR was. If, like Penelope, I make assumptions about this family, based on no first-hand knowledge, the mom was the primary caretaker, it was probably more her fault the kid was messed up. For all we know, the mother was a narcistic sociopath, and RR tried to fix things by the movie project, etc.
Lastly, I am not happy with how the plight of addiction is glibly talked about as if it can be easily cured or avoided. Yes, a young teen addicted to drugs is generally indicative of a problematic or neglectful home life.
But, as many people with addiction in their family know, it happens in families with decent parents, something this post refuses to acknowledge.
And, however the addiction starts, it is a problem only the addict can fix.
One component of having an active addict in one’s family is the amount of enabling that goes on; an acceptance of lies, manipulation, and mistreatment from the addict. I have to say this post comes across as (baselessly) excusing the addict’s bad behavior, a perspective that I think ruins the other point which was more about the worship of celebrities.
Rob Reiner was a good man but I am sure he made many mistakes with his parenting skills. I am sure that his wife and he loved his son and tried their very best. He was also an atheist. So, there is no hope because there is no God and I’m sure no bible, and no rules or morals. Therefore, if life is so random and there are no rules, then we can do anything and have no conscience. The time to reach the children, is when they are very young, and after that, it is too late. His son had no integrity. There are plenty of people that have serious issues and have experienced much worse parents than Rob and his wife, and they don’t end up killing their parents. It was an evil thing to do. And, I believe he is a psychopath. I believe he thinks he can get off from these charges, with no accountability. I think his parents were too easy going, and let him get away with too much. He left rehab because he wanted to go back home and do as he wanted, because there were no restrictions, not because he really missed his family.
I think he started lying and manipulating from a very young age.
I think there were many things that he was never taught. Even still, we can love someone with all of our hearts, and we will never reach them. I think Nick Reiner never appreciated or loved any of his family members. He was a thankless child and I feel sorry for his family. It is such a selfish thing to do because he took away his parents, also from his other brother and sisters. I think he only thought of himself, and his issues, and his pain, and he wasn’t the only family member. And maybe, he was jealous of his father and his brother and sisters. He did absolutely nothing with his life. And he never wanted to change. He never wanted to stop taking the drugs. And I don’t believe, he was ever truly sober and his family never should have allowed him to come back.
I think Nick Reiner called the shots from the time he was a little boy. And that have been his parents, not him.
He should have been made to live in the real world and to actually work, and he might have turned out differently. You can go to all the rehabs in the world, and if you don’t want to change, then nobody else can change you either.
He had it in his mind for awhile about hurting his parents. I think he had resentment towards them for years. He killed them while they were sleeping, left the house, never called 911 or anyone else. He left them for dead and he deserves the death penalty. He went to that hotel room and put sheets on the bedroom windows to hide himself. He knew exactly what he was doing.
If they were bad parents, at any time he could have left home and started his own life. You walk away, you don’t murder, drugs or no drugs, you don’t murder your parents, who gave you life!
I personally know of people in California who also are atheists- put career before kids and kids no longer speak to them. The Hollywood scene should have its own screenplay and talk about how the Hollywood life omits quality time for kids- exposes rampant drug and alcohol use as the norm and they do not have a belief in God as a creator of all life. How do claim to be a Jew, send your son to Europe to learn about the Jews but don’t practice your faith and are atheists?
That makes no sense.
I am deciding which comments to let through right now. There are some pretty terrible comments. I will just say here that Jewish people can be atheists. Just because Christians have to believe to be Christians doesn’t mean that’s the rule for everyone. If you are Jewish, you and Jewish – no matter what you believe.
I’m pretty sure this is just a misguided, although admittedly quite intelligent, attempt to draw traffic to a blog that wouldn’t have any readers otherwise. Somewhat anti-social behavior in its own right but nonetheless clever.
If this is somehow not that, and actually a legitimate opinion…seek help ASAP.
People don’t want truth.
They all want pretty lies.
God knows the truth.
What we see as inappropriate, God can see the appropriateness of.
This opinion is right on, exactly correct. I successfully raised three boys. Rob Reiner did not give the child the time necessary to rise him properly, to notice he was going astray and stop it. Rob Reiner was a typical, rich, self absorbed, Hollywood liberal. Compare him to President Trump who raised four, beautiful. loving, normal, educated children. Oh, you liberals here will go crazy reading this letter from me, but what I say is true, just ask my boys who will tell you about the love and, occasional tough love I have them. They have thanked me many times since they became adults with their own children.
You nailed it! Hollywood and narcissism go hand in hand, Rob being Hollywood royalty as they say. Narcissism and sociopathy go hand in hand.
Not justifying the act of murder but people should open their eyes and quit being so star struck ALL the time!
Ignore all these a**holes. You are right all the way through.
As the big sister of an addict in recovery, the daughter of an alcoholic and the mother of two young adult boys trying to raise good men in challenging times, I am gutted reading this. Unless you have lived in their homes and their heads, you cannot possibly understand the relentless trauma addiction caused in their family. Children are born with different brain chemistries, which we now understand to be enormously significant in their predisposition toward addictions. And when you love an addict, you become controlling and codependent – a desperate attempt to rescue and to cope with what can only be described as harrowing. Parents fk up all the time. This man sliced their throats and then sauntered into to a gas station. How you can shine a light on what you assume his parents’ mistakes were is just cruel and presumptuous and Trump-esque.
Respectfully, the Reiners had resources and privilege most of us can only dream of. I don’t think it’s realistic to compare your situation to this.
Maybe the legal proceedings in this case will unfold and formulate the nuance between kids who are difficult and parents who are difficult.
May the lawyers navigate the nuance between good people vs good parents. How do they give weight to the parents’ separate identities. There will be evidence that are for documentation; and there will be narratives that are likely unreliable.
If children become an adult, who are intensely vengeful, what is an avenue for the adult children besides medication and ‘rehab’. How much anger can an adult child express and be heard before they get shamed in public? I doubt the friends of this famous couple are that invested into building a relationship with the son. Famous friends are also busy being famous for a reason.
I think about this too! Nick’s lawyer is the same one who was on Karen Read’s case, so I’ve already watched like 100 hours of him on Court TV. He will have a good argument. I don’t know what it is, but I expect it to be something that gives Los Angeles the chance to redeem itself from the overly harsh sentencing in the Menendez case.
Spot on! I was googling to see who would be honest to look at all the facts. It seems like just very few can see the truth and are able to correctly apply the responsibility in narcissistic/abusive “families”.
Very well written! Thank you for your logical perspective. Good parents don’t get murdered by their kid.
This statement is a lie
Rob Renier did everything he could to help his son
I’m so grateful you posted this as I too have been unsettled by the black-and-white thinking that has contributed to maligning Nick. I do believe there is a distinct right-and-wrong with murdering one’s parents. But that a single child can “go bad” in a purely good and wholesome and nurturing environment has not seemed right to me. As other commenters have said, none of us know what the atmosphere was like at home growing up, but it doesn’t seem unlikely to me that the one non-filmmaker, middle-child was simply not as nurtured as the other achieving children and may have absorbed a lot of toxicity. I thought this moment when Nick says “string of problems” (https://youtu.be/eX1EZuYjmQc?si=fGlPR_QIlfr7uVOL&t=1671) was a hint that there’s more to the story than any of us can know. I’m choosing to believe that he chose to do this out of a great sense of historic, personal suffering (whether magnified by mental illness or addiction). The siblings’ request “for speculation to be tempered with compassion and humanity” seems to support this.
I think a lot of people, including your fans, are missing the big point of this post.
As I have followed along, I have noted these themes for you that seem to be areas of concern such as what it means to bond as one on the spectrum and with a child on the spectrum and knowing the data on what a lack of bonding can do to one. Another is on good parenting with you yourself calling yourself a bad parent and with Y to where they needed to cortex you and remind you that you are a good parent. And within these comments you note what lead you to write this: anger.
That “good parent” and quantify and qualify it has been a big part of this blog and your life as you have shared it with us. Because you are struggling with what that means to you and defining it for yourself as well as meeting your . This post raises an important questionyou, even with raising children to obtain the programs they achieved, still don’t think you are enough. Could Rob or any of us be? If you, someone who move all over the place, changed careers, homeschooled and got their autistic kids to the likes of Duke, thinks of themself as a bad parent who questions if they are bonded enough to anyone due to their own disability as well as their children’s… is anyone a good parent? And I can see why that makes you angry as the disconnect it creates with how you define “good parent” yet feel you do not even achieve.
I didn’t read this as an attack on Rob. But on yourself. Because if you can’t meet your own standards as you show us over and over, no one can.
Oof. That is tough and a hard space to be in. I understand the anger as it is really sadness.
Perhaps Rob did cause it all just as perhaps you are the only reason your child was accept to Duke and nothing at all due to themself. Perhaps he was the worse parent ever especially if even you are a bad mom who calls yourself that and openly to the point of needing Y to tell you that you are not.
But to quote a fave captain of our youth “it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose”.
Perhaps we need to factor that in. A life fact we all know to be “true”.
Perhaps the empathy you speak of in comments is what you need to give yourself, and therefore Rob as well as other parents who fail your metric that you cannot even master. Perhaps the words and actions that show who we really are are something you need to sit with if this was your first response to all of this and posted it online without review even if rage bait is how you gain engagement.
I think you have something much more interesting to dive into, explore, and write on with this being just the tip. Because, again, I am not seeing you address Rob but yourself and all parents. And what that means and how we measure it Because “good parenting” and how we define it as end results is interesting and if you cannot even achieve it by your own standards with everything you have done and children in the programs you alone got them into from your homeschooling… how can any one be a “good parent”? This is much more interesting than attacking Rob for clicks for ads.
This post and ones like it might gather clicks and revenue but might show an area of soft skills you need to reflect on as being an area you write on others needing help addressing so they don’t appear neurodivergent…
This comment is so well thought out that I want to respond. I think all my posts are in some way about me. I mean, I’m not working for someone else, so I only write what I feel an urge to write about.
Another thing about writing: I never have any idea if what I’m writing will get a lot of traffic. If I did, I’d be a gazillionaire. Rage-baiting doesn’t work for traffic. The posts that get a lot of traffic are controversial, which means people have to feel strongly on both sides of the argument. I write what I am sure is true. So I never know if what seems obviously true to me will be controversial.
Penelope, you went to Harvard. You are not writing the truth, you are writing what you feel is the truth. Your truth. Thank you for acknowledging it is yours but be honest with us and yourself in that it is not the truth. We both know the truth as that exists outside of us. Or you should if you went to Harvard… you can compile a whole lit review for me and I could do the same for you as a counter argument. We both know this.
But thank you for owning that you make the conscious choice as an adult to write and act controversially as a means to gain attention and gain money. The airport post shows that well as well as your behavior that you find to be normal but perhaps highlights exactly where you are not a good parent if that is how your children were raised to behave and think is normal…
Again, you made the choice to open a door on this. You picked bonding and I know exactly why. Because you can’t do it. Neither can your kids.* Your fear and anger and sadness are at it could not be avoided due to that. No matter the work. No matter if NT or ND.
What does it make you, Penelope, if you can’t do it naturally? A bad parent.
I’m not saying that.
You are. With this whole post.
You need to sit with that for a long time. And make a conscious choice to be gentle with yourself and others. We can make no mistakes and still lose.
*my belief, “truth”, on this is we all can connect but that NT are using metrics to measure connection in ways that can’t pick up where ND are. I look at this from the communication model lens and see that “lack of connection” as just “noise” needing to be filter to decode the message. But this is how I work with my children (one is autistic) and view the world. I hope it helps. :)
This was probably the most insufferable comment I have ever read on the internet.
The ridiculous amount of vile hateful comments you are recieving from angry tough-on-crime radicals are only proving your point. Good job!
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