Okay, so I've heard of first born syndrome and I'm pretty sure this isn't it but almost every Sim that now comes into the game via either born and most recently moving into the game, have the very nearly the exact same interests. Everything thing else is different from zodiac/personality signs, facial features etc except for their interests, which is where/how I base a lot of character development. They aren't exactly the same but almost. If it had just been a few I would write this off as a coincidence but it's getting absurd. Has anyone ever had this happen before? Is their a way to fix it? Help!

interests can be edited in SimPE; Character Description resource.
or could do any of the in-game interest-changing activities; "Share Interests" social, magazine reading, various hacks.

Yes but is there any way to have it stop going forward instead of customizing each and every Sim's interests? I don't mind fixing the previous Sim's interests through PE but going forward.... is there a way to fix this?

What mods do you have in-game? I'm not seeing this in my game, so I wonder if you have something that's affecting it. Does it still occur if you roll the pacifier?

If you think you might have a mod issue, make a backup, remove your download folder to desktop, roll the pacifier and test. Although if it is 'almost' and not every single sim it may just be a random clump and not a mod issue.

I have a lot of mods in my game but none that are outwardly showing any confliction. What is rolling the pacifier test? And yeah, it is almost... I've had over 12 children born now and not one has an interest in Politics or Crime for instance past a level 3 and most have zero. I'm not sure if that's normal??? Most of them have passions for school, paranormal, work, animals and travel. A couple with entertainment and fashion but mostly a variant levels of the first list.

I'll take a screen shot of what I can but it will be a day or two

seems like millenial Sims, just wait for the new born simmists or cupcake party

Go into CAS and roll the dice or pacifier-you need to do that to stop firstborn syndrome anyway. Then use cheats to have babies and age them up and check interests. if it is a mod, I am doubtful though.

It is far more likely that its to do with how you have set your sims up. Personality/ zodiac/aspiration and they are simply producing children with these interests because of your gameplay habits. Do you tend to pick just a few aspirations? Make your sims personalities similar? For example, if most of your sims are tidy knowledge and family sims this might explain similar interests. 12 children is a very small sample. You need more like 20 at least to see if its an issue. 12 could easily be a cluster, same way people will get 12 boys in a row. Sims 2 is part random chance but also part play styles.

This might not be helpful to you, but I noticed a similar problem after I installed FreeTime years ago, and it was because the EP introduced the interest-enthusiasm bleed wherein performing hobby-related activities increased interest, instead of the other way around. By default, sims will gain interest points in food just by eating, which might not work for your playstyle and might be a cause for all too similar interests across the board, especially if they're played too similarly to each other. Maybe tunaisfish's enthusiasm overhaul could help if this is the case.

I'm not entirely sure about this but in my experience, most kids in my game tend to be interested in school and animals (just like yours) but everyone's interests changes when they age up into teens and again when they age up into adults. I've had kids who were completely interested in animals only to be completely turned off by them when they became teens, and kids who loved school but ended up with 0 interest as adults. Are the interests static throughout the life stages?

I haven't noticed aspiration having an effect on CAS sims' interests though - I've had sims I created as Fortune sims, only for them to enter the hood with 0 interest in work and money even with "driven" personalities; of course you can interpret it as something else, but sometimes it's funny to me. I agree that rolling the pacifier would help with more diverse born in-game or game-generated sims, however.

For your current sims, maybe you'd like to try using some modded objects to randomize interests, like the Sim Blender.

The insiminator can help too to change intrests. I'll make a tutvid for it asap and let you know.

Yeah, even before installing Freetime I noticed that sims of the same age have similar interests. The game does something were kids are more likely to be interested in animals, school, toys and the paranormal than if they're adults (personally I hate that almost no adult sims seems to be interested in animals, who does Maxis think uploads all those animal videos on the internet?). In some respects the change in interests is realistic of course, but it also makes it hard to get to 'know' your sim.