I'm not a family player, yet even I think TS4 is lacking a bit in that regard. On the one hand, nothing annoys me more than people screaming "I hate this pack because it has nothing for children and toddlers!!!" even when the theme of the pack is clearly geared torwards adult sims (like... what were you planning to do with a toddler in the jungle anyway, sacrifice it to the temple gods?), and such packs should have a right to exist as well - just because something isn't suitable for kids, doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the game at all. But on the other hand, there have been many packs that could have included something for children at least, but didn't, Island Living and Realm of Magic being the most recent prime examples. I mean, would it really have been that hard to make a smaller version of the mermaid tail for children, or a few animations so that witch children can use magic (they do have one in CAS after all)? I really hope someone will make a mod to enable this.
The problem is not that occult and family play aren't compatible, let alone mutually exclusive, and several people in this thread have said that they enjoy both play styles. The problem is that most packs seem to be designed to be either one or the other, when they could easily be both. And I'm only using occults to make this point because it has been the most cited other play style in this thread, but there are other examples too, even in the base game. There is absolutely no reason for children not to be able to do some basic gardening and start building the corresponding skill while they're still young, and it's the same with many other base game skills that are unavailable for children even though real children can definitely learn them (Painting, Guitar, Comedy, Writing, etc).
