I paused my games because I knew I wouldn't really have time to play this holiday weekend. Today I has a few minutes and decided to check in on my peeps.
When I paused the game the oldest son was 15. Today when I unpaused it, he had gone away to college. Are they supposed to still age when the game is paused?

Pausing the game does stop everything in the game; however you have to keep a few things in mind about how pausing works in LDW games.

Each player slot must be paused individually. Pausing one game does not pause them all.

Leaving the game on the menu screen (or any other screen) does not pause the game, even though it seems like nothing is going on.

Going to the Options screen and pausing the game will completely pause the game, but you must click Done on the Options dialog and (to be extra safe) quit the game.

If you intend to leave the game running, the safest and most reliable way to pause it is to press the space bar and verify that you see the message "GAME PAUSED" in the blue player comm area. However, any time you leave any application running, it can be affected by computer crashes, etc., so it's best to pause the game and then quit until you're ready to return to it.

I did have the game paused message. And all of my families were paused because two of them have babies that I didn't want to age while I was away.
All of the other families didn't change, just the one. And when I came back to the game the game paused message was still there.
When I unpaused it I got an email from the oldest child stating he was homesick and missed homecooking. And he was gone.

I've had similar issues. I've opened the game, the pause message was showing, yet my family had aged. Also, I got tired of all of my families being exhausted constantly and not staying in the bed (even when I pause the game) and just paused them all and quit for a few days. When I came back, everyone was refreshed and healthy. This happened with each game paused, and the game shut down completely. And yes, the pause message was displayed on the screen.

Thanks, now at least I know it's not just me with this problem.
I paused my games because I didn't want my family to age while I was away for a few days. But they aged anyway.

We're having another look at this to be certain there isn't something wrong in that part of the code.

I was only saying this morning to my hubby I was SURE that Lilli was 11 when I paused and shut down the game last night. I left them all happily snoring in bed around 10 pm mom and dad included, oh and peeps the cat between mom and dad too.

This morning, I popped on the game to find them scattered all over the place, everyone still exhausted and Lilli a grand old age of 13!!!

Very odd considering my hubby's peep's have not changed, his was paused same way mine was with the 'GAME PAUSED' message on the screen before shut down.

I have one young man aged 15 ( Zen ) I really hope I don't switch on either tomorrow or the next day to find him suddenly gone off to college without so much as a wave or a 'bye' I'd be so upset - him being my first born an'all

That's what happened to me. I had the game paused. Actually I had all five games paused and one aged anyway. The oldest son went to college while it was paused. The only way I knew he went to college was because of an email he sent saying he was homesick. My 4 year old was suddenly 7.

Hello stonzee! I've also had that happen. I paused a game so that the wife wouldn't get too old to make another baby overnight. When I turned the game on the next day and unpaused it she was already too old. She was 47 when I paused it. So it isn't just your computer or game Sweetie.

I pause the game. I come back they are all over the place.
Another game, they go to bed exhausted. I do not pause the game so they can sleep. I come back hours later...they are running around still exhausted. Nothing I do comes out right.