With the busy schedule and social life I allow my sims, it is amazing I let them have kids at all. But when I do, and I usually do, it isn’t until the children turn into teens that I find a use for them. Babies, toddlers and children are as useless and time-consuming as in real life. So for my young sims, life is pretty much what you make it. Entertain yourself, kids! My sim-parents rarely teach toddlers to walk or talk. And they never teach them to use the potty.

Why not? Toddlers only use the potty for 3 sims days. Then they miraculously know how to use the toilet. As far as I can determine, potty-knowledge has no effect on their later life. And it is very difficult to train. You have to wait for the toddler to ‘need to go’ and then your sims-adult has to wait around, and clean the potty. Even then, sim-toddlers do not learn potty usage in one go. You need to repeat this process a few times, spending precious sim-hours having your sim-adult standing around. When they could be studying, or having fun entertaining friends.

I would probably have my sim-parents take more notice of their kids if I thought it had a positive effect . But seeing as most sim kids can still grow up to be reasonable sims, without potty training or homework help, I really can’t be bothered. Sim-toddles and sim-kids are resilient. I am rather happy with this. But it does leave me wondering why the potties are in there at all? Or any of the seemingly redundant stuff? There must be something I am missing. But until I find it, and deem it positive enough, I am quite happy having my toddlers run around with messy pants.