Silly: A letter to my young sims.

[TortureTheNannies]

You've been adults for a week. Your husband is a nurse. You were a field sales representative, before you gave birth to twins. Husband, your wife did great rasing them to toddlers. I noticed you had difficulty with twins, so when she had a third baby, I gave you a live in nanny. Well, that's three adults to care for three children. Do you have a problem?
Yes. The baby is beautiful. H is your youngest daughter and a treasure. Still, a smelly baby needs a diaper change and bath. Did you do that? NO! You picked her up. You played with her. You stare at her FOR FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS! Honestly, did my brother do that with his baby? No, they care for the baby's needs first. Your wife stared at the baby so long she peed on the carpet. You're starving to death from your staring hours. And yes, the stove is on fire, AGAIN! And it's four in the morning. Yet there you are, two hours to work, staring at a baby that needs some sleep.
Do you remember the two toddlers? They're your children too. I heard one of them pretend to call the social worker on his toy phone. They're crying for a shower, and using the toilet to bathe themselves. They're not playing boat! I rescued your live-in nanny from the abyss of bad health and starvation. She can't even get to the fridge, because you parked a sleeping toddler in front of it. I dialed for groceries and a maid. And you're still standing in the bedroom, staring at your beautiful baby for hours on end.
If I knew how to call the sim city police, I would. Your behavior is obscenely neglectful. You didn't talk to the house guests you requested. So they're caring for your children instead. The neighbor's teen is changing diapers, in spite of the fact she barely knows you. Those children are your responsibility, not hers. And what's this? You have a want to flirt with another woman, a pregnant woman? What would your wife say? oh that's right, she passed out on the lawn. And now you're staring at the baby for another four hours, again.

[Simonut]

:rofl: and I am LMAO, you made my day with this story. I think with all that is going on these Sims need a "Real Separation" or divorce and shipped to "Strange Town."
Great story :lovestruc

[TortureTheNannies]

Thank you Simonut. MMAA , thanks, that's ok if you thought it was boring.

[Peni Griffin]

Perhaps you should try playing with them and training them instead of expecting them to know stuff they've never done before? I never have to force my sims to take care of their children, just guide them a bit for the first birth.

[M.M.A.A.]

Thank you Simonut. MMAA , thanks, that's ok if you thought it was boring.

Oh no, yours was fine, it was MY message to MY sims that I thought was boring, but yours is funny, really!

[TortureTheNannies]

I will plan a training course. I interacted with that house four days today. When my latest EP is OFB, is that training in the program? They do train cooking (learn to make.. memory) , they appear not training to dance (sorry reality tv). but I'm not sure if they train parenting. I fear for the grandkids. I'm glad you enjoy it.

[Simonut]

Here is my story as Follow: My Sim decided to write a reply back letter to all of us "Player" send by Usp or Air mail to be sent all over the world to us players

You Players out there who told you to buy the Sims? Is it because you are on a power trip? Why do you want to come into my pixel world and rule us poor Sims ? You create me, you destroy me, You even gave me a Sims wife that I have never seen or heard of before. You force me to "Woohoo" with him or her when I really do not want to, you players force me to have babies without asking me first. Then when the baby come out not so goodlooking you talk about it to other simmers on a forum.

I am a Sims I wish I could come into your little world and do to you what you have done to us Sims. I do not like the fact you move me into a starter home with everything cheap in it. I do not like the fact that everyday you force me to go to work on some penny paying job. I Hate the fact that you pick a business for me to own, when you know darn well it is no good and I will stay in the red. Then you decide to give me a car and you give me a Maxis ugly cars, you made the "Repo Man" come to my house. Why did you not direct me to go to the mail box so I can pay my bills? Since you are controlling me.

And the most evil thing you have done to us Sims is kill some of us I have seen with my own Sim eyes how you made some of us even bake a child. You try to sent my child to University when you know he or she is an idiot and have always been a C student. You make me eat food that I do not like. You make me take showers when I do not want to yet, Am I that smelly? My Sim name is Hobo and you players have ruin my whole Sims pixel world. For now I am a good for nothing homeless tramp. :cry: who need :help:

[TortureTheNannies]

That reply is truely witty. That's something good.

[Kristin76]

Oh my goodness I could never let that happen in my game!
My Sims are so micro managed they have to ask to go to the bathroom before they go.

With childcare, not all parents are cut out for it. Some Sims will place their needs before an infants. Some parents will put their child on the floor after a bottle, others will walk them back to the crib no matter how far it is away. But regardless of their skill level I would never leave a Sim baby in a dirty diaper for more than a few minutes, I am afraid of the Social Worker showing up.

[Peni Griffin]

Although there is a Parenting skill that the sim can study about in books, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the way we as players train sims to behave.

The mechanism is simple. The more a sim does something, the more likely he is to do it again, especially in a similar situation. (I think this effect may be increased if he gets positive reinforcement via aspiration points, but I could be making that up.) If they haven't encountered something before during their little pixel lives, they behave randomly. I see no evidence that sims who have never been around babies know where they come from, what they are, or what they need. If you don't tell them to change a diaper, they don't know the diaper needs changing. The exception is things like cuddling and feeding, which the code makes more likely to happen randomly than other behaviors, and I believe are hard-coded to occur if certain conditions are met (which is why baby-mobbing occurs). Although it is possible for a sim who never saw a baby before to randomly decide to change a diaper at the appropriate time, it is exceedingly rare. (I've seen it happen once.)

You don't have to micromanage a sim to train him. Micromanaged sims may even have a longer pause time before they do things on free will because they're so used to being interrupted (in effect, they've been trained into passivity when they're the active sim). Certain actions (like pottytraining) will never be available unless the player directs them, and there will always be a random element in the sim's behavior. I still generally direct my sims to use the changing table to change a diaper, if only to prevent them from dropping a dirty diaper on the floor. Sims who are low in motives and/or aspiration become recalcitrant and refuse to do as directed; while happy sims are docile and will not only do as they are directed to do, but will autonomously do constructive things even against their natures.

It's true that some sims seem to be particularly stubborn on certain points. Ask anyone who's ever tried to make a "perfect match" for a sim who has already decided that a less-than-perfect one suits him better. And some sims are more cooperative than others - I had a sloppy sim go into aspiration failure recently, on the death of his father, who had always been my go-to sim for getting stuff done when everyone around him was falling apart. I tried to take good care of him in return, but over and over and over he was stuck with being the only one available to fix plumbing, clean up after meals, cook, and keep everyone else from going nuclear. So when he went into aspiration failure and rolled a bunch of unfillable wants I expected him to act out for once, and was prepared to be patient with him. But when I put him to bed with queued bathroom actions and dealt with the rest of his household, by the time I got back to him he was up, showered, and quietly cleaning up after himself. For all the times he'd moaned at me for making him clean up, here he was doing it for himself, because he knew from experience that it needed doing.

You won't often get a sim like that, however well you train them, but ultimately, what they do is down to us. It makes even less sense (though it also does less harm) to be angry at an untrained sim than at an untrained dog. The dog doesn't understand what you want; he only knows you're angry. And sims don't know anything at all. If you don't like the way they act, learn to play better. We all get frustrated and yell at the screen when the game throws too many uncontrollable things at us at once; but almost all of our troubles in the game are our own faults, because we expect sims to know more than they're designed to know, and behave in ways they aren't designed to behave.

If they knew how to take care of themselves, what would they need us for?

Yeah, I know you said it was silly, but it hits a button as you can probably tell. I always want to give people a piece of my mind when they yell at their dogs and expect them to come running up with their tails wagging, are rude to their kids and expect to be treated with respect, and treat their cats like stuffed animals and then get bent out of shape when they get scratched; and the behavior of people griping at sims for being sims instead of human beings is exactly similar.

[AlexandraSpears]

Sadly, you can go to BadBreeders.net and see examples of real life failures at parenting!

[DasRabennest]

I'm all with Peni on that one. Gorillas that have never seen a mother gorilla in action nursing and caring for a baby don't know what to do with their own once they have a baby. Then they act similar to your sims and gorillas are intelligent beings. They can even be educated on childcare by watching videos about it...

Sims can not and they're not intelligent. They're just programmed pixels and they need your guidance to do a good job in childcare. In fact a well trained pleasure sim can be a hundred times better as a parent than any untrained family sim.

So...even though I know they're not real I feel for your sims, Torturethenannies. It's not their fault. Also it's not about micromanaging. That's really not necessary. But at least use their first day of parenthood to tell them what to do with that little pixel bundle. Or if you don't: Hire a nanny. They're a pain where the sun don't shine but at least most of them won't let the baby get taken away...due to their hardcoded childcare behaviour. ;)

DasRabennest

[TortureTheNannies]

My sims asked me not to read the browser while I play. i countered with use of the pause button. They'll be fine while paused. Also, The nanny has prevented social worker, but since she sets the house on fire by herself, that social worker might come anyway.

To the sims who replied. Remember, I created you. In a way, that reminds me of the relationship i have with my Creator. I can be a kind and happy creator, who reads your wants and interests to calculate what you need. I can also be a Calvin and Hobbs god who demands sacrifice and enjoys in wrecking the whims of your life. Like I said, do your homework or you're marrying Goopy Gilscarbo. And leave Meadow Thayer alone. I don't want you sims to goose her skirt. I don't want it either. I can review my hacks, but I find nothing that makes you play with a baby for 15 minutes, then stare at it for four hours. So, I'll watch you play with it, then immediately order you to take a shower for once. And what do you do? I just put that baby in a bassinet, and your cousin gets it out again.

[VerDeTerre]

I swear they come alive when I sleep and turn the computer back on and do all sorts of mayhem!

[StrangeTownChick]

One can't expect a first-time sim parent to do everything perfectly, but you would think a sim on their sixth kid with the same SO could at least get it half right.
Nope.

[Issie]

Usually my sims are obsessed with babies to the point that someone is always holding one at some point and the baby will be fed multiple times by multiple people over and over....

I think I have the baby mod by Pescado which stops those obsessive behaviours.

[TortureTheNannies]

nobabyharassment.. I think that's the one. But of course, one benefit in this nightmare was seeing visitors take care of the baby when the parents would not.. I will install the hack and see what happens.

[M.M.A.A.]

Dear Calista Despret (the nanny),

Normal sims will take their normal toddlers and bathe them normally. However, YOU, my dear, have taken a toddler and bathed in the first floor bathroom, took him out, went to the downstairs bathroom and bathed him again. He did not play in any mud, nor did wet himself or anything, his hygiene bar was green. I'm sorry, but I have to ask: are you mentally ill? Because with the way you do things, you sure sound like one.

Let me remind you of something else.

At the Smith's, you had one baby in your hand and the other, you placed it infront of the fridge, i.e. you "blocked" access to the fridge and you kept whining about that you can't reach the fridge to feed the baby in your hand. My question is: is it really hard for you to put the baby in your hand on the ground, pick up the baby infront of the fridge, place it somewhere else and feed the other baby? I have another question: what is your IQ? 3? I remember that, because of all th e whining, you even wet yourself and blamed the babies for it. You lier. I'm telling! HAHA! Seriously, if I see any of this happen again, I will fire you and get a more efficient nanny such as Kendal Lawson. *Here, Kalista screams and is about to tear the letter, every nanny is jealous of Kendal, she is the best!*.

Sincerely,

mmaa

[VerDeTerre]

That's coding and it is annoying! I would yell at the game developers, though, not your Sims.

Here is a hack and some modded objects to make life easier with a toddler in the house:

Squinge's Move Away From Fridge (http://www.insimenator.org/showthread.php?t=24233) makes Sims move from the refrigerator before giving them the bottle.


And Beck's Non-Autonomous- Bubble Bath - Bathe Toddlers Free Time EP Required (http://www.affinitysims.com/forum/index.php?topic=362.0) for tubs that do not have the siren call to the Sims to constantly wash their toddlers.

[Kristin76]

I also have to add and it was brought up but I cannot find it again. But one would think that family Sims would be the most attentive andn good parents but I have had quite a few, including Romance Sims that forgot all about their aspirations to raise a child. In fact one of my best parents is Don Lothario, yes he still had that occassional woo-hoo want, but he changed diapers, served lunches (some w/o me telling him to) and helped with homework w/o complaining. I often saw him playing catch, dancing (when the step on their feet) and other autonomous actions.

I do have a complaint about nannies though, they are simply horrible, every last one of them. I dont hire you to play the piano when my child is screaming for a bottle or diaper change. I dont ask you to make yourself lunch/breakfast and throw the kid on the floor of the hallway. Just last week I lost a baby because she did this ... no the Social Worker didnt come, I literally didnt know where she put the baby. Here she had it next to the couch in a corner. The mother found the baby and fired the nanny on the spot. That is why now I have a generation with their grandparents alive, I will be moving new parents in with grandparents or vice versa.

[Simonut]

I'm all with Peni on that one. Gorillas that have never seen a mother gorilla in action nursing and caring for a baby don't know what to do with their own once they have a baby. DasRabennest


@>> DasRabennest >> I'll sorry but I have to disagree with what you said about Gorillas the creator of all life here on "MotherEarth" made all living thing with an inborn instinct natural ability to care for their young ones. (babies ) in the wild or being raise protectively by human Gorillas never lose that instinct. This have been proved many time by professional people who deal with such animals. If this was not so animals would not exist to this day from generation to now.

One example are my very own two parrot that I have had since they was babies (1994 ) They was never around other parrots to see how to care for a young one.
But when they became older they instinctly knew what to do when they had their own baby bird.


Back on the Subject sorry members

@>>Peni Griffin >>I do agree with most of the thing you have said in your post, but I have found in my game the Sims do randomly change the baby diapers on their own without directing them to do so at time. The "Family Sims" seem to be more adaptable at doing this interaction with free will. I have found other Sims types will "sometime" follow suit with changing diaper at free will. That about the only thing I disagree with on your post when it come to the diaper changing. :)

[Darby]

While it's logical to imagine that Family sims would naturally be better at childcare than other sims, I doubt the game actually recognizes a connection between a sim's aspiration and child care skills at all, and that players' observations are entirely subjective on this.

I also suspect the individual differences between sims of all aspirations with regard to caring for babies and toddlers is partly the training Peni Griffin refers to, and partly due to how strongly the baby/toddlers "advertises" to a given sim, just as objects do.

One thing seems certain: ALL sims are coded to be nice to the younger set, regardless of aspiration or personality, and that a mean romance sim is just as likely to be good attentive parent as a nice family sim. At least, that's what I observe in my own game. :)

eta: Not sure if this has been mentioned in the thread, but the changing table is broken. If it worked properly, I imagine we'd see a lot more autonomous diaper changes. I think Pes's baby controller makes it functional, though.

[DasRabennest]

Hi Simonut,

we could take that one to the debate room! ;)

The higher the intelligence of a being, the lower the instinct level. Gorillas really have to learn how to care for their offspring. It helps that they're highly social beings, living in big extended families in the wild. That way nature makes sure they can learn the "How to's" while watching their own mothers, aunts and cousins do childcare.
When captive gorillas without sufficient family are having babies, they are often shown videos of experienced gorilla mothers caring for their offspring to see and learn. There have been experiments to teach gorillas childcare by using life sized gorilla-infant-dolls but they were not really successful assumedly due to the missing correct reactions of the dolls...

Parrots, cats, dogs and other lower intelligence animals do not need that extent of learning due to their higher instinct level. Most of them get along quite well on their own. One easy (and rough) indication of the level of learning needed for caring for a beings offspring is the mobility level of said offspring. Infants that are highly mobile (like foal, guinea pigs, etc. f.e.) are easy to care for and their mothers don't need much information to react to their needs and are acting mostly by instinct. Infants that are altricial (like parrots, cats, dogs, rabbits, etc. f.e.) also have mothers of higher instinct levels. It's the infants that have to be actively carried along (like chimpanzees, gorillas, humans, etc. f.e.) that need the most intelligent mothers and that takes the circle back to the first sentence: The higher the intelligence of a being, the lower the instinct level.

Now, there's a lot of debate amongst scientists already and I'm not learned enough to explain this topic better but if you're really interested I'm sure you can find a lot of sources of information on the internet or your closest uni library. ;)

Thread derail done, paddling back: The Sims infant mobility (altricial, though they SHOULD have to be carried along if they were really simulating human infants) indicates that their mothers should have higher instinct levels...but they have not. Assumedly because they're no living beings but pixels programmed to give the illusion of being human. They definitely have to 'learn' a lot...and even then they're often doing a mediocre job in childcare. But that's what they have us for. Sometimes it would be nice to just sit back and watch, definitely, but the intervention needed makes sure we as the players feel exactly that: needed. Keeps us attached, doesn't it? ;)

DasRabennest

[mirjamsim2love]

I have a letter for one of my nannies. She is a Dutch one but don't think that is any better.

Lisa Ying,

After all those years watching you nanny your ass off and screwing it up miserably often, I have decided to write to you.

First of all I am still surprised they have kept you in their co-workers system. You are a bad nanny. Maybe you thought I forgot about it? Nope! Ages ago, it was thanks to you that one family lost their only daughter Amber. You kept standing at the side of the crib screaming, which was not only very annoying but it also prevented the mother from being able to take care of her beloved baby. No matter what she did, sending you away, fire you, you kept standing there yelling. What the piep was that good for? Did you want the social worker to come because you had a gruch on the mother? Because after the baby was cruelly taken away you went home. Well, congratulations. You succeeded.

But here you are. Still being the nanny and they always send you in first! Like you are their top notch nanny. May I laugh my ass off if it wasn't so sad? You are the worst there is. I prefer Heidi Ammenooitniet. Yes, that is right. The one with the famous Leia Skywalker hair. It wasn't thát long ago you almost burned down two houses in the same family.
You got fired by Dorena Webber the first time but still you may keep working somewhere else. Unbelievable. To go almost burn down the house of their daughter Leah. There were seven children in the house, Lisa! You almost became a mass murderer!

I'd wish I could do something to get rid of you but that is out of my hands so let me instead give you some tips. Stay with the food when you put it in the oven and don't go wonder off to read a newspaper, you silly old bag! Never grill something again. You clearly are not able to nót burn the wraps.
Your reputation is known so the parents try desperately to potty train their kids. So the kids can go to the potty themselves. You almost never change their diapers but go swim, watch tv, whatever until they shit it and then first feed them before you decide the smell has become too bad and give them a bath. Change a diaper once in a while and use the table for it, lazy woman! O, and get the child out of bed so it can go to the potty, instead of letting them stay in their beds until they no longer can hold it up.

Seriously, I have way more things to say to you but then this would become a book instead of a letter.
Watch your mailbox though, there might come more letters!

No regards,
Mirjamsims2love

[fruitsymphony]

Dear sim,
Sorry but I could not understand so much of your letter, I am an illegal Polish immigrant.
Who could not find a proper job. My lifetime wish is to become a celebrity chef. I am great at cooking.
I am saving money to buy my own restaurant.
But you pay me only §10 per visit and §15 per hour.
Yes, if you hire me for 2 hours I would be able to order a pizza, But
unfortunately I have to pay installments on the blue van so can not afford to buy food.
Which is why I sometimes make a little visit in your kitchen.
When your kids are not sleeping in front of the fridge. May I suggest that you hire a professional nanny, but then you might have to pay a little bit more.
Sincerely. your nanny.

[M.M.A.A.]

Dear Sophie Miguel,

You are a disgrace to my town, why? These are my reasons:

1- You may be the only sim who ever made enemies with the LLAMA Mascot! Seriously? I mean, couldn't you pick up a fight with the Cow? You have humiliated yourself without even caring about it. Anyway, you became the center of attention in college because of all the fights you had with him, you even embarrassed your husband at his graduation party (He had his first, then came hers). I really don't know what he saw in you? Unfortunately, your daughter carries the same traits as you do!

2- You and your husband don't love each other. This may lead to a divorce, although, I'm still not sure about it. If that would happen, I cannot trust you in taking care of your own child, so he will gain full custody of her, while you live and die a lonely life and death.

Ofcourse, all this can change if you change.

Sincerely,

your worst nightmare,

mmaa

[TortureTheNannies]

Sophie oh you incompetent sim. I wish you were in my neighborhood, as my graveyard is under-filled. We have plenty of places for tombstones. And, they're a great way to limit bad behavior. Do you know which is more painful for you sims (and not us players). is it sim childbirth or sim fire? I think you'll get the latter, but I'm fond of disease since that death rarely appears on its own.

As for my sims, I installed nobabyharassment. Do you sims have any idea why that hack exists, why I installed it? You keep picking up the baby at 1:22 AM when your energy is at max red, and your bladder is low. I already asked your sister and her husband to change diaper and feed the baby. it's needs are all green. If I were you, I'd listen to Sophie. She seems to have more sense than you!

[gazania]

I'm just having a laugh at all the silly letters! Thanks for sharing them! :) (BTW, the mods to do this or that are very helpful as well.)

[TortureTheNannies]

The letters are helpful, and people will mention a hack at some point. Anytime we get frustrated with a sim, the hacks come out. It's fun to discuss sim annoyances all these years long.

[MattShizzle]

[Note: this is a letter back.]

Yeah, Matt? I know you're like getting close to 40 now and have been playing since the game came out and know a lot of what goes on, but listen. Yeah, you made me a big time player, I don't have a job but have a big nice house with everything and still like 80,000 simoleons to spare. I woohoo every attractive sim woman in the nieghborhood, too. Yeah, that's the problem. See, I'm actually gay and that's not my thing. k? So hook me up with some of the male sims.

[mirjamsim2love]

Second letter to Lisa, the disgrace of my town Csonka Canon.

So Lisa,

Here I am again. Warned you upfront, so don't pee your pants. Again.
I saw you did have the time to write a letter back. Shouldn't you used that time to take care of babies?
And what is all about that being a Polish immigrant. What a lowlife excuse to explain your poor skills!
For the little chores you do while 'nannying' your pay is more than high enough, I would say.
And I am pretty sure you would not do any better if you would get paid more. I think you would get more lazy, if that's even possible.

Did you ever wonder why the parents are never late from work? They are scared to death to do so because you could have burned the house down in the mean time or did something else bad. If they could, they would stay at home. They never feel good at work and are rushing home after, just to heave a sigh of relieve their children are still alive.
And did you ever wonder why sometimes a parent is even home when you come? Well, here's why, they don't really trust you pulling it off on your own!

Wake up call: you are not good in cooking. Don't tell lies anymore to other sims after they ask you what is your skill. But I am glad you don't say you are good in being a nanny. I guess that is even too worse for you to brag about. I strongly advise you to never open a restaurant. It would be burned down within the first week. But I guess we will be save because with your paycheck you are never be able to buy a business. Some thing sort out by themselves, thank god.

Maybe I will tell my simmies to take care of their own children from now on. I think they will listen. They love their children, you know.

Well, this was it for now. Until next time, Lisa! Unless the immigration office get a call. Then perhaps not.

Bye bye for now,
Mirjamsims2love