What is 'adopt as care dependent'?

It's a way for a non-biological young adult, adult or elder (related or not) to take special care looking after the needs of a child or toddler (and teen, I think). It doesn't necessarily mean the child is adopted using the adoption mechanism. The carer could be a grandparent, older sibling, etc.

My current family is a man, his twin brother, his wife and his toddler. So the toddler does have both parents living in the house, but the Uncle did also get this option.

Must be an option for any non parent, I guess.

Yeah it showed up with my (toddler) sim while playing as his grandmother. Its just so that a non-parent sim can assume parenting responsibilities and aid in raising a child.

The claiming as "dependent" thing should be available to any Sim in the household YA and up: http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/15765660/#Comment_15765660

"luthienrising;c-15802811" wrote:
The claiming as "dependent" thing should be available to any Sim in the household YA and up: http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/15765660/#Comment_15765660

Thanks, @luthienrising . According to that, SimguruNinja says multiple caregivers can be added, so that will be a huge help for my sweet, old grandies.

Err, I can confirm that any adult in the household can do it. I don't know how well they need to know each other but I had a non-relative living in the same household become the caregiver of a teen.

Yeah, I used it in my game of three siblings (2 YA, 1 teen), so the young adults could raise the teen. It's pretty handy.

"Anduar;c-15802798" wrote:
There are some limits it seems. Sims can't just "adopt" a random child. My sim can't adopt his ex-girlfriends (teen) daughter.
They might have to have a relationship somewhere on the family tree for it to work.

No, my two YA sims had twins (curse you ley line!) and I literally could not take care of them, so I just sent them to live with the Bheeda family until they age up, and Arun was able to choose both as care dependents, even though they aren't related.

One of my male sims had an alien abducted offspring, and his wife (the stepmom of the child) was able to be the caregiver of the kid. Which I was happy about.