Except that with humans, with our super-helpless offspring, still gestating even after they're born, the bonds between humans and the social connections around the raising of infants are particularly important. So, for example, having grandparents around can help survival rates, even if those grandparents are no longer fertile themselves. (Some argue _especially_ if they're no longer fertile, as childbirth becomes more dangerous with age. Most species other than humans have no menopause, just a gradual fertility decline.) Another example, there is some evidence that attended human births are more successful than unattended births, even if the attendant doesn't have experience or skill.
Jenny Brown
^^^^
Yes, we might call childcare extended reproduction. More fully, what matters for natural selection is having babies _who are fertile and reproduce_ themselves. So, since , as you say, it takes extended childcare for humans to grow to an age when they are fertile and nubile, it matters to natural selection that humans survive longer than some other species.
What matters to natural selection is that one survive until one has babies and that one's babies survive until they have babies who survive until they have babies....
Agree that extended childhood of humans begets more sociality. Probably the other way around too. Interesting to speculate on the origin of longer childhood and greater sociality, which caused which or the interacting causes.
Language/symbolling enhances sociality tremendously. Was language/symbolling invented in the mother-child relationship ? i.e., did women invent language/symbolling ?
Charles Brown