I am testing a mod for it at the moment. My skills aren't good enough to filter for family, but I think it should only count friends for pp and for testing it's at 14 but I'm thinking 8 or 10.
Anyway, I don't really like having to mod a game to enjoy it, either. So I'm hoping EA thinks about this one. It just annoys me because most of my sims have family members, it's almost impossible for me to prevent them from getting people person, and for many it makes no sense. Many of the other ones are also hard to unlock in my game, but I consider that a different issue.
