Parenthood - Should I get it?

The pack operates on the idea that a child is an empty shell to be programmed with values. Therefore attempts to influence the child in a certain direction will ALWAYS be succesful. Yes, the child may get an annoyed moodlet from having to learn to say thank you, but the lesson will stick.

Sims can only influence children towards negative character values if they already have one of the negative traits. Only bad mannered sims can encourage farting, for example, well mannered and neutral sims can only discourage it. So even though the game doesn't directly judge the player, there's a clear bias towards "correct" play. In an unmodded game it is also much harder to raise a sim towards the negative character traits than towards the positive ones.

You can use the new "Ask for advice" feature in very different ways. If you answer your child/teen's dilemma from the parents point of view, the child will gain or lose points for two of the five character values.
However, with high Parenting skill you get a preview which values will be affected, so if you already know that your young sim will be Empathic, for example, you can always choose the answer that will raise their Empathy. That alleviates the issue of children getting programmed a little and lets them be their own characters.

If you play without free will, you will be locked out of the "Ask for advice" interaction, which is imo the most important tool in this pack. In this case you should get the "No ask for advice" mod, that disables autonomy for this interaction and makes it user-directed instead.

When you use a discipline action (grounding from object use, friends etc.) or give a young sim timeout, I've seen sims become focused from that and the accompanying moodlet even said how helpful that was. It was incredibly cringe, and I don't use the punishments anymore. That isn't to say my parents don't discipline their teens in their own ways (many of my sims of any age are not nice people), I just strongly dislike the scripted ingame punishment interactions.

The Responsibility value I like to think of as Work Ethic instead. It can be a bit annoying to read what the game considers responsible behaviour, but after flicking that mental switch I was fine with it.

With that out of the way, the CAS and BB are really good. When the pack was new, Backyard stuff and Parenthood were my favorite combination.

Others have gone into explanations about the text scenarios that usually happen during the school day and that are tied to parenting skill. I would also say that it adds more activities throughout the stages of growing up and it pairs well with the other family content. Admittedly, I don't really make delinquent kids. I skew strongly towards happy, functional and productive future sims so the pack goes with my playstyle. I do like making them all a bit different so I don't try to max out every character value for every child sim.

This pack has young sims doing things like volunteering, writing in journals, listening to music to calm down and some new social interactions that build or reduce character. They can also set the table which is a way to actually make sure that sims sit down for a meal together. It's a good idea to set the table for a holiday meal, for example.

I would say it is somewhat open-ended because you can take different interpretations of how parents should encourage children to turn out depending on what you emphasize with the character values. You can opt for a strict parent encouraging responsibility or a more lenient friendly parent who is in-tune with a child's emotions. You can instead go for raising ill-mannered, cursing brats if you want. I haven't so I don't know what it is like but you basically wouldn't correct them and wouldn't encourage any manners or responsibility or emotional control. Also, getting in arguments and doing mean interactions will make kids or teens "worse".

Not mentioned by anyone else I think, is that this pack does offer some interactions among adult family members after children have grown up. They have new social interactions with their parents and siblings such as "deep personal conversations" and "give family advice". I use these a lot to continue the sense that sim family members know each other and are close even when they have grown up. It distinguishes families from random sims. Again, you can combine it with other childhood or family-oriented packs and you end up with ways to differentiate families from each other. I would say it pairs with Kids' Room, Backyard Stuff, HSY, and obviously now, Growing Together. You end up with various activities that individuate kids & teens.

I regard Parenthood as an essential. I don't want to echo what everyone else has said. I think the only thing that hasn't been mentioned are the mood swings for teens.

I am a Parenthood owner.
I’m not a parent IRL and have 0 insight concerning that part, plus I rarely play as a parent in TS4. I never completed any of the aspirations.

However…I personally find that having access to the character value reward traits does add a lot to my storytelling. These hidden traits come with new social interactions, both positive and negative. I would typically skip the “rearing kids” part and give my young adults parenthood traits via…I’m going to say it - cheats. My main sims are never at their best behavior, which is reflected in their negative traits, such as being argumentative, irresponsible or having bad manners. They belch and fart at the most inappropriate times and give rude introductions. Sims around them like them less, which can be challenging when you’re trying to get stuff done. They can crush other sims’ dreams. Ofcourse that’s not everyone’s thing, but I’m the kind of guy who WANTS sims to be a little more edgy, and parenthood really helps with that. It’s by no means perfect, but it helps.

Other PROs:

• Setting the table. A small thing, but I like that we can do that.
  
• Option to Discipline kids (comes in 3 different flavors) and give kids/ teens time outs ( at a higher parenting skill level).
  
• The multicolored fairy lights ….I find that I use them a lot in my post apocalyptic builds/ shacks / treehouses.
  
• After school projects. WHEN I play kids/ teens, that’s the most fun part. They can work on these projects alone or with friends/ parents. They get to build volcanos, castles, robots, rockets and possibly more. High quality builds have sweet little animations.
  
• Private Journal. This little notebook offer stress relief ( to sims of all ages) , boosts writing skill and can be hidden. Perfect for historical play.
  
• Not sure if this is basegame, parenthood or another pack but kids/ teens can shove each other, which is a nice touch. Mischief galore.
  
  

I feel indifferent towards phases & mood swings; I still haven’t figured out whether I like them or not.

CONS:

• Kids making a mess. It doesn’t bother me too much, but it can get a little tiresome. I suppose the entire point of this feature is to encourage the kiddos not to be such messers.
  
• Chance card pop ups. Yeah I agree with others on here, they can get a bit annoying, especially since the constant phone calls already exist.
  
• Curfew. Good concept, not well executed, unless I’m playing it wrong… In TS3 the police ( police!!) would bring the kid home after curfew, and there would be trouble. In TS4…no one seems to care. When the curfew clock strikes …all the mischievous kids can stay out all night because mom and dad are happily snoring in their bed, completely oblivious to the fact that their kids didn’t make it home on time. BUT WILL BILLY EVER COME HOME?! Trust me, no one cares.
  

The lack of consequences in this game is one of its biggest issues- it makes everything feel rather bland.
That said, Parenthood still adds that little extra flavor to my stories and I wouldn’t want to give it up!


EDIT: ( my goodness..,the grammar police was chasing me- but I’m afraid I won’t get it right tonight. ?)

"CAPTAIN_NXR7;c-18350225" wrote:

Curfew. Good concept, not well executed, unless I’m playing it wrong… In TS3 the police ( police!!) would bring the kid home after curfew, and there would be trouble. In TS4…no one seems to care. When the curfew clock strikes …all the mischievous kids can stay out all night because mom and dad are happily snoring in their bed, completely oblivious to the fact that their kids didn’t make it home on time. BUT WILL BILLY EVER COME HOME?! Trust me, no one cares.


The lack of consequences in this game is one of its biggest issues- it makes everything feel rather bland.
That said, Parenthood still adds that little extra flavor to my stories and I wouldn’t want to give it up!

That's exactly why I like Sims 4 curfew better than the Sims 3 version.

Sims 3 dictates what my society looks like: there is mandatory curfew and it is enforced by the police. They always know where everyone is and home in on them from anywhere in town. They even grab a teenager from the street when he just wants to cross it to the wellness center right across before school. The parents have no say in how they react, they will autonomously scold the child.

In Sims 4 Responsibility value ticks down the longer the young sim breaks curfew. If I want my parents to care, I wouldn't sent them to bed while their kiddo is still missing. I can always direct them to be as angry as they want manually or decide that they don't care. It's my game, my characters, my rules.

Other than the slightly annoying pop ups, which I eventually got used to. It’s quite a fun pack and gives so much game play. It has a lot of school activities like building a model volcano ( and several more projects ), for children and teens. It has some cute toys, like the doctor toy that I believe helps your child learn empathy. You can have children set the table to gain responsibility. And you have the choice to discipline ( or not ) your child for a variety of actions. Parents can begin learning the parenting skill right from birth ( possibly before if you want to read a parenting book ).

It is just super packed with game play options. If you love playing with families, I think it’s a must have.

"EnkiSchmidt;c-18350235" wrote:

"CAPTAIN_NXR7;c-18350225" wrote:

Curfew. Good concept, not well executed, unless I’m playing it wrong… In TS3 the police ( police!!) would bring the kid home after curfew, and there would be trouble. In TS4…no one seems to care. When the curfew clock strikes …all the mischievous kids can stay out all night because mom and dad are happily snoring in their bed, completely oblivious to the fact that their kids didn’t make it home on time. BUT WILL BILLY EVER COME HOME?! Trust me, no one cares.


The lack of consequences in this game is one of its biggest issues- it makes everything feel rather bland.
That said, Parenthood still adds that little extra flavor to my stories and I wouldn’t want to give it up!

That's exactly why I like Sims 4 curfew better than the Sims 3 version.

Sims 3 dictates what my society looks like: there is mandatory curfew and it is enforced by the police. They always know where everyone is and home in on them from anywhere in town. They even grab a teenager from the street when he just wants to cross it to the wellness center right across before school. The parents have no say in how they react, they will autonomously scold the child.

In Sims 4 Responsibility value ticks down the longer the young sim breaks curfew. If I want my parents to care, I wouldn't sent them to bed while their kiddo is still missing. I can always direct them to be as angry as they want manually or decide that they don't care. It's my game, my characters, my rules.

I 100% agree with you that mandatory curfew should not be a thing. Sims 4 gives us more freedom this way. My game, my rules, absolutely.
I just don’t feel that this curfew mechanism is very balanced.
I personally miss the curfew police and wish we had a toggle to switch on/ off NPCs like this, the same way we have weather specific toggles or an option to turn off the celebrity system. In TS3 I can have my teens dodge the curfew police ( or the graffiti police ). That is the challenging and fun part for me, to try not to get caught. Unfortunately, in TS4 there’s no system like that in place at all.

I don’t send the parents to bed. They do that themselves. They’d do anything except scold the kid that arrives home late. They used to do this a lot more when the pack was released, nowadays the kid rarely gets reprimanded autonomously, regardless of parental skill level.

See, I already got the parents to activate the bulletin board, shouldn’t that be enough to trigger certain behavior? If I want them to be lenient parents I’d have them ignore the bulletin board completely by not setting the curfew clock to a specific time. Curfew doesn’t exist in a household in which no one cares about who does what and when. But I have to set the house rules through the parents. So when I play as a kid or as a teen, and mischievously stay out after curfew, I would like the parents to act accordingly, especially when they’re members of my active household. I don’t always want to direct my sims, I play with full autonomy on. I don’t always want to tell the parents what to do. I prefer to be in control to some extent, but I want the game to simulate behavior based on whatever traits and likes/ dislikes I give my sims. I want the game to surprise me, but in a logical way, if that makes sense.

"haneul;c-18350132" wrote:
There are some annoying pop-ups that come with the pack that are a bit forced and that affect the Parenthood character values. You can't opt out of them and have to choose a response that raises one trait/value and lowers another. For me, that's the worst part. They're not that bad, though, and as a whole the pack feels much less invasive to me than Sims 3 Generations. It generally lets you choose how to discipline or not your Sims' children as you like.

I'm not sure that Parenthood would add anything significant for storytelling.

I wish the character values pop ups would let you see the kid's stats for the relevant category at the time, but unless you happen to be playing that specific child at the time, you can't.

"EnkiSchmidt;c-18350235" wrote:

"CAPTAIN_NXR7;c-18350225" wrote:

Curfew. Good concept, not well executed, unless I’m playing it wrong… In TS3 the police ( police!!) would bring the kid home after curfew, and there would be trouble. In TS4…no one seems to care. When the curfew clock strikes …all the mischievous kids can stay out all night because mom and dad are happily snoring in their bed, completely oblivious to the fact that their kids didn’t make it home on time. BUT WILL BILLY EVER COME HOME?! Trust me, no one cares.


The lack of consequences in this game is one of its biggest issues- it makes everything feel rather bland.
That said, Parenthood still adds that little extra flavor to my stories and I wouldn’t want to give it up!

That's exactly why I like Sims 4 curfew better than the Sims 3 version.

Sims 3 dictates what my society looks like: there is mandatory curfew and it is enforced by the police. They always know where everyone is and home in on them from anywhere in town. They even grab a teenager from the street when he just wants to cross it to the wellness center right across before school. The parents have no say in how they react, they will autonomously scold the child.

In Sims 4 Responsibility value ticks down the longer the young sim breaks curfew. If I want my parents to care, I wouldn't sent them to bed while their kiddo is still missing. I can always direct them to be as angry as they want manually or decide that they don't care. It's my game, my characters, my rules.

I like Sims 4 version better too, though a variant where you 1) have beat cops and 2) have to have your teen or child sim actually cross their path, rather than having the cops basically hunt them down, wouldn't bother me. I'd still want it to be the player's call on how the parents reacted, of course. And it should still be on a toggle for if your society even has a curfew or not.

What bothers me about the Sims 4 curfew board is that you can't set it by sim, so your child sims and teen sims have the same curfew, and you can't "reward" a more responsible teen with a later curfew (say for a job) than their troublemaking sibling. And you can't vary it by day, so no having a later curfew on, say, prom night if you have HSY, unless you remember to change it yourself.

So I usually don't bother with it at all.

Honestly, the characteristic system is not that satisfying. It doesn't feel like your sims' parenting influences their lives and leaving them a better/worse adult for it. You have to hard grind it out to get the traits, and at that point it feels like I - me, the player - am doing all the work. it doesn't help that many of the major ways to boost your child's characteristics can be done without parents at all.

Childhood phases almost never happen for me. Neat idea, but they're so rare that I don't really have an opinion on them. I like the teen moodswings, which are much more common. But emotions are so incredibly easy to manipulate in this game. Mess-making would be a cute bit of chaos, if NPC kids didn't do it all the time on public lots, regardless of context.

I'd say the main reason to get this pack is the side content. Journals are a good way to build the Writing skill and control emotions, and it adds a touch of character. The table-setting mechanic is incredibly useful for making sure all your sims sit at the table together. School projects are great. The BB is pretty fun, the CAS isn't bad.