I personally fail to see the benefit of the "social aspect" of daycare over DD being with me doing our normal stuff. It kind of assumes that the primary carer and people one encounters in normal life don't "count" as people. It's not that i think it's detrimental, i just see it as benign - neither better or worse.

Bx
I can absolutely see the social aspect to day care! Charlotte needs to learn how to interact with other CHLDREN, not just the people in our immediate circle, which unfortunately (and why I see the need for C to go to cc VERY soon) is VERY small. And the children I do know that are her age are quite frankly, not people I want her learning how to behave from iykwim!

Charlotte is wonderfully social, she is accepting of people and wary although not scared of people she doesnt know. All in all she is doing fantastically with her socialisation. Yet I still recognise the need for her to be with other children and not just me all the time.

I think all that is highly dependent on individual circumstance though. I see my mothers group very rarely. I know you are planning on having other kids, where as we arent, so I feel it is important that she learn how to share and play with another child successfully very early. As I said we dont have a large circle of friends with kids her age here in Perth, but if we did I would consider cc to be much less important from that social perspective.

I certainly disagree though that the assertion of cc for social reasons implies we are not people. It simply indicates quite accurately that mum is not 15 other children. Their interactions are completely different, and incomparable imo.