My personal preference is that one of their offspring stay home (or move back home from University in Sims 2). The elders do all the house stuff that needs to be done; cook, clean, garden, babysit. The parents can continue in their careers or pursue a life dream and do the most important part of raising a toddler without having to stress. Multiple generation households means that you can be pretty sure that someone will care for the baby without you having to step in.
I basically never ever have elders living on their own. Nor do I kill them off before their time. It's a holdover from how I played Sims 2 - I rotated between all my households so every one of them had extended or multiple families in it so that I had fewer to play (it was still over 20 by the end). My preference was child move home with parent. If the parents already had one adult offspring living there, second preference was siblings and families living together. If I couldn't manage that, it was down to cousins or good friends from college. :)
I know that is pretty much the way you are supposed to handle a legacy - but that's not the reason I do it. I just like having my elders still being very active in the family.
So what do you do and why?
I definitely see the appeal in doing things the way you do, and back in Sims 2 days, I definitely did them that way.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure what changed with Sims 3, but yeah--I definitely either move my elders out, or move the kids out. Part of me wants to give them their 'freedom', where they don't have to deal with me anymore. It's also nice to see what they do on their own once I'm out of the picture, as well as be a 'visitor' in the house I spent so much time in before.
But, in the end my family just gets way too expansive to manage elders along with everyone else, and since I play with relativity so low having an extra pair of hands doesn't really add much. That, and, I try to give my Sims the same dignity I gave myself and I let them move away from their parents when they're old enough. I love my parents, but... At a point, being around them constantly just isn't fun anymore. XD
And, since I care more about how my Sims would feel if they were real people, instead of effeciency in the game, I prefer to spread the family out ASAP. ^^
When I was typing this at one point I thought, my families are so pre-20th century. Extended families used to be so much more the norm. No money or way to move out for a lot of them.
ReplyDeleteI do tend to leave my elders in peace for a lot of the time. They get sent places, and occasionally asked to do a chore but they have a lot of time they can fill as they like.
Of course, the other advantage to them staying home is you don't have to find them a new decent place to live - or spend a week building it. :)
Ask me when I have some. I hate to admit it, but I tend to get bored with my familes before the adults have a chance to become elders. Of course, it may be a subconscious choice. In my very first Sims 3 game, my sim married her maid, and when he died of old age before she'd even aged up, it was horribly depressing. Maybe I'm not allowing myself to take them all the way through life so I don't have to watch them die.
ReplyDeleteBack in the Sims 1, I created elders to be the caretaker of the family, freeing up all that precious need fulfillment time for the youngsters. I remember one steely old granny who ran an orphanage. I might have to try the orphanage challenge and see how long I can manage it.
Hey Sue,
ReplyDeleteI must admit, you bring up one of the ugly aspects of playing the elders all the way - watching them die. I am pretty immune to watching Sam die, there will be another Sam clone. There is always another Sam clone somewhere...
But if Penny stays with Phillip and Vanessa, I will have to watch Phillip die. And that is going to be unpleasant, he is a fav. It was the advantage to having Phillip move from home - I didn't have to watch Indy die.
It depends. Usually, I let the kids leave and choose one child to follow out of the house or to a new town.
ReplyDeleteOnce in a while, I'll stay with the elders and one child. Sometimes, when one of the elders dies, I'll move in the remaining elder and make sure they're not alone. That is probably my preference. And then the elder gets to have loads of fun. No babysitting or cleaning for them. What fun is that? I'm sure as heck not going to live my later years that way. Dammit, I'm going to enjoy myself! Elders have earned it.
I'm the kind of person who really can't handle more than a few people in the household. So when it reaches a certain point, I release them to Story Progression and visit them a lot. Right now is an abnormality for me, with all the Pesce-Evans clan living together.
ReplyDeleteI also feel like having your parents in the same house makes it difficult to maintain privacy for everyone. Whereas in previous decades it was the norm to have your parents living with you- especially when you had kids- it's kind of shifting away lately, like you said.
That being said, I do like to at least play that household from time to time, much like I would visit my grandparents from time to time if I had any. I like to let them at least have part-time jobs, or a hobby like gardening or fishing or painting.
To be honest, I do tend to get bored long before my Sims become elders. Before I started this story, I never really had any live to be that long, because I would switch around and start new games.