More Awesome Than You!

When I adopt a child that was previously playable but got taken away, I find their memories got wiped and their age is reset.

Is there a hack (or two hacks) that can counter this?  The FDA only permits teenage sims or older to drink the elixar for a reason...  and I don't want to see the social workers messing with children's memory!   :-\

That's the reason I won't let kids be taken and adopted in my game - on the odd occasion it's happened without me being able to stop it, I haven't saved the game.  I have a mod that stops townies losing their memories when they're moved in, but I don't think it works for adopted kids.  The only way to do it would be to copy out all their memories in advance from SimPE and add them back.

Another possibility would be to go to the lot you want to have adopt them and teleport them in with Inge's shrub, then adopt them through that.  I'm pretty certain that they'd keep their memories then (I don't think they go until the actual point they become an official family member) and you could always add the "Adopted So & So" memory in SimPE to the adoptive parents.  If I was going to do it myself, that's how I'd do it.  Back-up your neighbourhood first of course, in case it doesn't work.  How you dealt with the family tree after that would be up to you, depending on what storyline you were following (i.e., whether or not you kept their original parentage or changed it).

I think their age is reset because (for me anyway) it would bite to adopt a toddler and have it age to child that very day... also, Maxis was probably thinking that if you adopt a child, it's ties to the former family should be severed (after all, there's a possibility that a child could be adopted by a great-great-niece or nephew)
I've used Inge's shrub (to assign custody to the other parent or grandparents) and it's very good in that memories, ties and wants are still intact. The kids will never 'want' interactions with grandparents as they would with parents, they just spin general wants that anyone can fill.
Have also used it for 'foster parents' and the same goes...though parental visitation will cause those 'parent wants' to spin for the child.

I would like a hack so children would die when their hunger motive dropped to zero, and that having a bad school mark or no social motive would not trigger the social worker. I don't like the no social worker hacks, because it means children can't be got rid of through starvation.

But the shrub allows you to put the child up for adopt anyway, so you can get rid of them like that.   Another way would be to get an adult to "find own place" with that child, then use the shrub to move the adult back into the house.   That way you will find the child on their own in the homeless families bin and can simply delete him.

I wish the family ties weren't severed. Because if it once were a playable sim, they might end up having their biological father's baby in the future...I haven't had any accidental ss visits. Some close calls with grades, but the only times I've seen the SS was mainly when I was fooling around.

Sounds like Zyrcona would prefer to kill the kid though...
Though they're few and far between, I would let my unwanted (annoying) kids go off to the adoption pool or make them townies (via shrub) but I've also put them there using SimPE.
I prefer to sit them in a room studying though... then make then little slaves, they do all the cooking and cleaning and amuse toddlers to up social...when they hit teen, they are also responsible for all household maintenance and care of younger siblings.
It seems harsh at times, but I have a lot of friends who grew up that way... I can tell you, they don't usually grow up to be family Sims ;)

JM has a test hack for notownie memory loss.  I asked him to extend it to adoptions if possible. No reply. I'm sure he has other priorities.  It's reasonable that the babies and families don't remember anyone or know who they are related to.  That's real life.  Complete memory loss for kids is unrealistic and I mindwiping them should be illegal.  They keep their skills, just not the memories of getting them, so with their ages being reset to minimum, your toddlers ought to have maxed charisma skill at least before growing up.