Although I have lots of elders in my saves I don't often play the family oriented trait so don't see it as much as I would like. I know I could direct my elders to do it but I don't like to control my sims more than I have to. Besides, it's much more interesting to see what my sims will do without my direction and be surprised than to know in advance what I want them to do.
If you don't like your sims to die, you could always do like I do with my simself who is an elder - she is immortal always and occasionally joins my households as live-in nanny :)
