How old are sims...really?

"Cupid;c-16547682" wrote:
I view the toddlers as 2-3, the children as 7-10, teens as 16-18, YA's as 20-early 30s, Adults as (very) late 30s - 55, and Elders as 65+

This seems close to what various devs stated when they were making these sims and the ages they represented - except teens were considered 15-16 and kids were 9-10. But I can suppose people can pretend what ever they want them to be - regardless of what ages the devs molded them after. LOL. I know a few simmers that tell me they make kids sims about 7 even though most 7 year olds I know do not just sit around talking like minature adults, but do a lot of running and playing (like kids in Sims 3) where I live from ages 6-8 - and why I believe Sims 4 kids actually act more like 10-12 year olds - so I guess it depends on the player and how they see them more than anything.

Babies: under 12 month
Toddlers: 1-4 years
Children: 5-13 years
Teenagers: 14-18 years (some are already teens at 12, it depends on the society and living circumstances)
Young Adults: 19-25 years (some stay YAs up to the age of 35)
Adults: 25-70 years
Elders 70+

Within the age groups I differentiate via clothing and accessoires. Also I play with free will off, so at least in my active household acting out of character doesn't happen.

For me:

Babies: around 9-12 months
Todds: 1 to around 4-5 years
Children: 5 to 12-13-14
Teens: 13-14 the youngest to 18
YAs: 18 to 30-33 (sorry, anything older is adult)
Adults: 30-33 to 60-65-70
Elders: from around 60-70 to death.

For me the gap between the child and teen stage is a bit too much. Here I would like to see an extra age category like a pre-teen stage. For me the children are only to like 11-12 years old and the teen stage is 15-16 to 18. I play on the longest lifespan so I solve it by dressing the newly transitioned teens into outfits best suited to 13-15 year olds then around the middle of their age span their outfits will resemble more towards what teens and adults wear.

There are some really realistic guesses in this thread.

I agree with some of the numbers here. One thing with the children is dressing them with base game items when they are supposed to be younger and kids room stuff when they are getting closer to the teen years. My child did sit around talking like a mini adult when he was 5 and 6 years old so this works for me. Like many others my real issue is the adult to Elder jump.

I see them as:

Babies: newborn to a few months
Toddlers: 2-5 yrs
Children: 8-12 yrs
Teens: 16-19
Young adults: 20s and 30s
Adults: 40s and 50s
Elders: 60s and up

I find it interesting that a lot of the guesses here end the adult stage at 55 and then jump to 65 for elder. My real life age is between those two, so what am I? o.O lol Anyway, I understand why it's perceived in this way though, I see that as well. The game does depict quite a jarring jump between these two age groups.

The jumps between baby to toddler to child to teen is too drastic in my opinion as well. The only transition that is somewhat realistic is teen to young adult to adult.

This is how I see the age groups as depicted in the game:

Babies - 0 to 3 mos. I'd say older, but they never leave the bassinets
Toddlers - 1 to 3 yrs. The average baby begins walking/toddling between 1 yr. to 18 mos.
Child - 8 to 12 yrs,
Teens - 16 to 19 yrs. IMO teens look way too old in this game to be 13-15 yrs. I do know some teens physically mature earlier though. The opposite is true as well. Some young adults look like teenagers well into their 20s. *shrugs*
Young Adult - 20 to 35 yrs.
Adult - 40 to 55 yrs.
Elder - 75 to ? Here in the US, people start getting 'Senior' discounts at age 62. I would've started this at 62, but that's not how the game makes elders look. They're MUCH older looking than that in my opinion.

Having said all that, I really don't have a big problem with the age group transitions. I'm having fun in my game despite the way it is now. It's too late at this point in my opinion to add anymore anyway. Mostly because I feel it would involve a complete overhaul of the game with all the different heights and animations that would be needed. I'm guessing this would take too much time and expense for a game this far into development.

If they were to attempt a major overhaul of any kind I'd much rather the focus was on improving emotions, adding memories, likes/dislikes, more traits, etc. to give our Sims better individualized personalities.

Happy Simming! <3

One thing I see a lot of people are doing, is having the end of the Adult stage way too late.
There is no way that adult sims are anywhere near 60. Adult sims are still able to pop out babies. This means the upper limit of the adult stage has to be below 50. Which means the leap from 45 to 75 is quite a nightmare!

"Movotti;c-16805055" wrote:
One thing I see a lot of people are doing, is having the end of the Adult stage way too late.
There is no way that adult sims are anywhere near 60. Adult sims are still able to pop out babies. This means the upper limit of the adult stage has to be below 50. Which means the leap from 45 to 75 is quite a nightmare!

Actually Babies born over age 50 mothers has been a thing for decades - they are called change of life babies and not as unusable as one thinks - but it is usually more dangerous for some moms to go through. I believe that is why they include the 50's in child bearing years. I actually have an Uncle that is almost two years older than I am who is just as healthy as any baby and several of my older cousins (6 in fact are older than my youngest uncle on my moms side of the family. They were Southern farm people and that is quite usual in farm country or was in the USA anyway in big families.

Of course it is not just a thing of Southern farm families either seeing when I was a teen in Massachusetts where we also lived - I used to baby sit for two different families who also had perfectly healthy and bright change of life babies both born normally before doctor intervened to help moms have babies in their older life time - so it is a natural thing for decades. In US birth stats it states between 1997 - to 1999 there were around 500 healthy births to women in their 50's to their 60s even- so the numbers have actually increased with medical intervention as I believe naturally those numbers were not that high for both mom and infant to be healthy.

Personally I cannot imagine doing such a thing - but stats speak for themselves. LOL. I had all 3 of my babies before I was 24. That suited me just fine.

In my game, this is how I see it.
Baby: 0-6 months
Toddler: 3-4 years
Child: 7-12 years
Teen: 14-19 years
Young Adult: 20-35 years
Adult: 40-65 years
Elder: 75+ years