The point is that they try to hide, but the Universe keeps finding them.
Hiding was kind of the point of Startide Rising, it’s a Sci-Fi version of the Submarine Adventure Story (Run Silent, Run Deep, etc).
Hiding is only a starting point for the Uplift Trilogy, though. And I liked the kids and the whole Huck Finn-viewed-through-alien-eyes conceit. But the plot really doesn’t focus on them that much.
One thing that strongly points to humans uplifting themselves is that Earth has so many different species on the verge of sentience. I remember it being a big deal that Humans already had 2 patron races, dolphins and chimpanzees. They had to hide the fact that Earth had a lot of other potentially upliftable species like gorillas, and other primates. If Humans evolved to be sentient unlike the other galactic species, it would make sense that close relatives would also be very close to sentience.
As I recall (and it has been a while), Humanity had to hide the fact that they nearly caused the extinction of a number of near-sentient earth species, and had caused the extinction of non-sentient species - if there was one thing that would prevent them from having Patron status, their carelessness with Earths biodiversity would have been it.
Si