Am I the only one who never cared to play families or with ageing on?

I like to play single sims mostly, who have self employed type careers. I play with families too, but I have to say that I find the children a bit tedious because of the requirement for them to go to school everyday. I don't like the regular careers and the school is too much like a career for the kids, so I don't enjoy that either. 

OMG--I just got into the Sims again and forgot you could do that! I am SO going to turn aging off ! Also, I don't understand why my Sims in two games got big in the hips. I didn't build them that way! Probably because of the aging thing.

I play with aging off because I love playing with families and having time to really get to know my sims. Or I should say one family that I've been playing for the last 6-7 years. I love the infant, toddler, child, and teen stages.

My Super Sims Family Challenge 2.0 | EA Forums - 4959503

One of my toddlers remained a toddler for almost two years and one of my teens, Juliette, was a teen for four years. 

Juliette

I turned off aging from the beginning of my Sims playthrough and personally only play Young Adult They are really for romance

I play in a similar fashion. I've only played two actual families in my entirety of the Sims and that was a single parent with a kid in college (neither of them ever aged) and recently a single parent raising a single child from birth and up... and the only reason I am doing this is to try to do a save that has my Sim do everything... well almost. I might make a second save where things branch off so one follows the path of a "good Sim" and another for a "bad Sim".  Either way, the only aging in this so far is the kid via blowing out some candles. Nobody else has aged meanwhile.

Typically, family game play isn't my thing. Dating and weddings aren't my thing either. Having to manage romantic relationships all the time is too much of a pain. Give me "The Dating Game". Once they have gotten gold dates and full romance... There. Done. They will be together happily forevermore and I will have them whoo-hoo in interesting places when I want something silly. Otherwise, they are working jobs, doing hobbies, gaining skills and collecting stuff - which is my main game play. I want "all the things".

On the side, when following tracks has gotten a bit boring, I have had a tendency to kill Tragic Clowns for the good of Sim-kind... despite my Sim was the reason it was summoned in the first place... and torture Sims that become too aggravating to me. They tend to live, though. The Tragic Clown is fine since I consider it supernatural... you kill it (unfortunately you often have to add it to your household for an interesting kill), but another one can be summoned soon after. It is a shame they aren't the way they were in the OG Sims: a shmuck named Sonny who bothers your Sim until your Sim becomes happy enough that he cannot stand it and escapes through a magic hole in the ground, your Sim banishes him through flames or you call the clown catchers to wrangle him.

I play rotationally with aging off, but I turn it on every New Years Eve to add one year to everyone's life. This happens only 2-3 times every RL year, so my over all progress is rather slow...

We really need back the real tragic clown yes, and clown catchers along with it. It was so surreal and hilarious to see a secret agent with a ray gun of sorts go after that clown as they try to get away. 

I like to play families in sims because I like combining different premade sims into new characters of my own to play with :) 

Its just more interesting to me to play say Vlads daughter than just any random blank slate of a sim I could create in CAS

That said I too keep my game strictly auto aging off because I really like to choose when sims age up myself rather than be rushed by particular number of simdays

and in some cases sims are stuck on same lifestages what seems like eternity cause I just really like that particular lifestage for particular sim 😂

or I might be inspired to write them dead for reason or another before their natural passing time 😅

As for what comes to IRL, would rather meet my morbid end than have kids 💀 Deadly terrified of those munchkin.

it is great you enjoy your own playstyle. I personally play with aging on long. I also enjoy family gameplay, and am a mom of three girls IRL. I would get extremely bored with aging off and just playing with young adults. Family gamplay is fun for me and I try to make the longest legacies I can. Unfortately the bugs in the game prevents me from gaining any real progress.

I personally enjoy playing with aging on. If I played with it off, I think I would feel too guilty about aging up my Sims into a stage that could potentially heighten their chances of dying (such as the elder years). Besides, I get nervous about making decisions and would rather leave my Sims' fates up to the algorithm.