In my opinion, Elders can be a pretty boring life stage if you play wants-based like me. Elder Sims are done having children, may be done with their careers, and may even have an empty nest. Then you’re left wondering how to make them more fun to play.
(I’m looking at you, Oldies.)
Here are some things I do to make Elder-only households more entertaining.
Mastering Hobbies
In their golden years, I have my elders work on mastering their hobbies. You can see my hobby and sub-hobby system for The Sims 2 in this post.
If they haven’t yet reached max hobby enthusiasm, this is a goal you can work towards. They can also work on maxing out hobby-related skills such as creativity and logic.
They could also create for other Sims. A Sim with the painting hobby and a maxed creativity skill can create paintings for family members as gifts. A Sim with a maxed cooking skill and the Cuisine hobby could cook excellent meals for their children’s households, etc.
When I play the Goth household in Pleasantview, I always have Mortimer (who has a maxed cooking skill) stock the fridge with as many high quality meals as possible for the family to eat after he dies. They can live on his Turkey for weeks!
Adopting Children & Teens
When I play the Oldie family in Pleasantview, the first thing I do is have them adopt a child to raise. I usually have them adopt a little girl and pair her up with Beau Broke since he doesn’t have a potential partner his own age in the ‘hood.
Having elders adopt a needy child or teen gives them a new purpose in life and makes the household more fun (in my opinion). You get a new round of age-ups and milestones, plus new opportunities for your elders to teach the child and influence their behavior.
If my elders are closer to the end of their lives, I have them adopt teens. You can use this mod to enable teen and townie adoption. It also allows you to choose the gender of your adopted child (or teen).
Starting a Business
Elders have usually amassed quite a bit of knowledge and may be very good at their hobbies by now. They can start a business to sell their creations – paintings, sculptures, etc. Or, they can sell produce from a garden or start a restaurant or bakery.
If they don’t have a creative hobby but they do have cash, they could even start a small general store, pet store, or some other business that corresponds with their interests.
Playing Open for Business with elder shopkeepers keeps them busy and gives them something useful to do. Instead of playing your elders on speed 3 and praying for death, open a shop!
They get social interaction from their customers so they don’t feel so alone. It benefits the entire ‘hood, as they can find purpose and provide a service at the same time.
Breeding Pets
In alternate versions of Pleasantview, I’ve had the Oldies breed pets to make them more interesting. Elder Family Sims – like Coral Oldie – often really enjoy breeding animals and roll wants to get new pets frequently.
To start, I have them adopt a male and female of whatever pet they want – small dog, large dog, or cat. I just wait for the elder in question to roll a want for a puppy or kitten and go with that. If you want to speed things up, adopt adult animals instead of babies.
Next, I befriend the pets, get them to befriend each other, and start breeding. After that, I’ll start my own little pet adoption agency by selling animals to the other Sims in the ‘hood.
Babysitting & Housekeeping
Another possibility is having your elders move in with their adult children as free babysitters and housekeepers.
For example, you could move the Oldies in with Mary-Sue and Daniel Pleasant, using their starting money to build them a little cottage in the back or remodel the house to make room for them.
Elders can provide free childcare and help with chores while the adults focus on their careers, hobbies, having children, etc. This is a good solution if you don’t like playing elder-only households. Just combine them with more interesting Sims and give them a background role.
I’ve moved the Oldies in with the Pleasants before, and used Coral to give guidance to the Pleasant twins – keeping them out of trouble while their parents basically ignore them. Some Simmers prefer to move Lilith in with the Oldies instead.
Vacationing
Traveling to the Bon Voyage worlds is something else I frequently do with elders. They have the time and the money to spend on vacations in their later years. Many of my Sims never go on vacation until they’re elders because it’s the first time they get any real leisure time in their lives.
I always like to send Mary-Sue Pleasant, for example, to Takemizu Village. I imagine this is her birthplace and she’d like to visit again before she dies. You could come up with all sorts of story possibilities here.
Rich elder romance Sims could also travel to look for new loves – especially if they’ve already plowed through the choices in their home neighborhood. (Pun intended.)
Retirement Homes
I always have a retirement home in my neighborhood that I fill with townie elders. It’s a really fun household to play, especially if you use ACR (autonomous casual romance mod).
I prefer my playable elders to stay in their own homes until their family members can inherit the house, but I have considered putting the Oldies in a home with other elders to make them more interesting – and give them something to do. I think Herb, especially, would love to be surrounded by elder ladies.
I age up an adult townie each time one of my playables ages to an elder. Then, the newly-eldered townie moves into the retirement home. Once I get through my regular round of households, I play the retirement home. Some elders die, some have affairs, some continue their careers, etc.
It gives them a place to live out the rest of their lives among others their own age.
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Do you have any ideas for making elders more fun that I didn’t discuss here? I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below and share!
I wouldn’t say that elders are done with wanting children, or with having affairs per se – just like in real life, elder male sims are perfectly able to sire children, and both male and female sims are capable to long for new affairs. 🙂
Sometimes, just for the variety factor, I arrange an age gap marriage with an elder male sim and a much younger female one – the base game also offers this scenario with Mortimer and Dina. I also had some cases in my game when an elder couple divorced because one of them had an extramarital affair.
Most of the time I keep them in the same household with their kids to limit my number of households (already have too many of them, with Pleasantview, SSU and Bluewater Village combined) and, as you mentioned, to have a babysitter.
Hobbies are however lots of fun too, indeed! Especially Nature, you can give them a little garden to work in and they will be able to spend a lot of time in it without being bored 🙂
I also generally let them continue with their jobs unless they have the want to retire. Very often it is only in their elder years that they can get the big promotions. (which is a little bit weird for e.g. the dance career; they become world class ballet dancer at the age of – let’s say – 70) 😀
That’s a good point about keeping the number of households down!
Hi!
I’ve recently build a retirement home (I’m not as good as you, but I think that’s a decent home anyway), and I’ve moved there my sim with no love in sight and she is taking care of the elders – she cooks three times a day and socialize with them if needed (in free time she does whatever she wants, I’m silently hoping for romance with one of the elders or alien abduction :D). Also, I created in this same home something like little pet shelter and elders are taking care of two dogs actually, because I wanted to check if shelters suit my style and I think I will stick with this elders + pets idea 😀 Anyways, I’ve seen you are playing your elders in retirement home, and I’m not. They roam on free will all the time (one my playable and old garden club members xd) and I check from time to time how they are doing, if they need something. Also I control them only when it’s time to walk or bathe dogs. Its kinda fun, I thought it would be tedious or something, but actually it’s nice. They are surprisingly good at taking care of themselves if they are fed regularly 😀
I love that!!
Hey Cindy, sorry to leave a comment unrelated to the topic, it’s just that this is your most recent post. In you latest Sims 2 Let’s Play video on the Broke family you mentioned you’re using a mod that allows playable sims to get pregnant from risky woohoo, even if they’re not currently active, and I’ve tried searching for it but nothing has come up. Could you give me a name or a link to this mod? Thanks in advance, I’m a big fan! 🙂
Hi! You can find the mod here: https://modthesims.info/d/650724/baby-toddler-and-pregnancy-mods.html
You need the one called “PregnancyCanWeGetPregnantmod” but I also use the main BabyToddler mod with it.
Thanks so much for this post! So many nice and reasonable ideas!
I’ve seen your retirement home in one of your older Let’s Play videos. I’ll definitely try that with some (future) elders, if I have nothing else for them to do.
I play this one elder couple – they’ve been going crazy with their pottery stations & creating different objects for their daughter to sell (she’s an adult who just graduated from university). Soon the elders will pass away, but their creations will live on in the neighborhood.
Another elde rolled the want to get another baby, his wife (also an elder) will pass away a bit sooner than him. He might start an affair / a fling with a townie (if ACR does it, we’ll see). Maybe that want will be fulfilled. If not – they still had a long and fulfilling live 🙂
Aww, that’s so sweet! I love the idea of their creations living on after they pass!
I imagine it would be fun to move elders into a retirement home with ACR installed for a bit of drama. A home with all the amenities for socializing and hobbies would give them lots to do.
I guess this wouldn’t be a good idea unless you have a number of seniors to move into the home. Would work with the Oldies if you also move in the Goldies and age up some townies and make them playable.
I play elder retirement homes, but only with townies. I like my playables to stay in their homes until their families can inherit. But I would definitely stick the Oldies in there since they start with no home. I have an active retirement home in Pleasantview that’s a lot of fun to play! I am going to add this to the list too!
Things I did to make the Oldies more interesting:
– adopted a kid and a teen to them
– moved them in with MS and Daniel
– moved Lilith in with them
– had them open up a hair saloon
– had them breed wolfdogs
Have Lilith with them and see her getting a decent person after almost always poking and being mean to everyone was especially
I’ve found that moving the Newson family in with the Oldies make for a fun experience. It gives Gavin and Ginger a break, letting them enjoy their teen years and keeps Herb and Goldie on their toes.
I also use meetmetotheriver’s clean installs. I used the marketplace versions to make a huge uberhood combining a 6 neighbourhoods into one, so not even my elders have a dull moment 🙂
Thank you for this! I’ve been struggling to think about what I’ll do with the Pleasant spouses now that their kids are grown. Especially love the idea of mastering hobbies and babysitting!
Hi Cindy,
Great tips. I usually keep the elders with their kids if there’s room in the house and they take care of all the chores.
I used to avoid the Oldies but now I’m planning to include them in my rotational gameplay. However I struggle to find them appropriate lifetime wants (I want them to be happy, can’t help it 😀 ). Coral with her Family aspiration would roll wants with having a lot of children or puppies which is very hard to achieve with low amount of money at their age. I was wondering if rolling golden marriage would work, since they are already pre-made elders. And I guess Herb’s cheating does not help either, haha. Do you have any experience with that?
Take care, love your content.
I don’t think they will get the Golden Anniversary option since they were created as elders. I don’t worry with the Oldies’ lifetime wants because in my game they never have time to achieve them anyway – especially with wants-based gameplay, so I’m not much help. Sorry! You could always give them secondary aspirations and try a LTW from that – like Max out 7 skills or something.
I just found on Sims Fandom Wiki that Oldies can actually throw the Anniversary party right from the start of the game, I tested it and it’s true. However elder Sim cannot roll the Golden Anniversary LTW 😀 I can still age them back to adults, cycle the LTW and go back to elder but that is too much cheating. My plans are ruined 🙂
Oh, that’s great news!!
Loved this article! I usually have my empty nesters work on their hobbies, start businesses or adopt pets, they also frequently invite their family over for meals. I also just sent a pair of them on a tropical vacation and subtracted it from their ages after – oops. But they really are the perfect Sims to do it with! Also, I don’t often let them become empty nesters in the first place, usually I let their children and grandchildren still live with them because they really can be a lot of help, and I also don’t have them retire until they get proper old or roll a want to.
I also let my elders keep working too! Keeps them busy and earning money!
I always take time away from elders and adults when they’re the only members in the household. If I send two elders on a vacation for five days, they lose five days of life for the time they were gone. I consider it a good way too kill time and explore new environments, like they’re living abroad to see the world!
I love that!