Socialization doesn't mean social skills . . .

It means assimilation. That is, when someone finds out we're homeschooling, and they ask "But aren't you worried about socialization?" they really mean "Aren't you worried your children won't conform to society?"
This realization was prompted by a couple afternoons spent, in part, in company of a friend of my husband's, a seventeen-year-old who will get his bachelor's degree this summer, a homeschooler who started college at fifteen. M. is a very social young man, very well educated. He chooses to be more amused than frusterated by the fact that society won't let him do anything yet, and showed up yesterday in a t-shirt with a picture of handcuffs on it reading "Trust me, I'm legal."
But . . . in the course of talking, he related an incident where he had worn a sarong out of his apartment. Oops! Yep, non-conforming to society, there. Straight males, in this town, do not wear sarongs.
And I realized, as he was laughing at himself, and at the town, that this is why people ask that socialization question. They aren't concerned about a homeschooler being able to string a sentance together or carry on a conversation, they're concerned about having their preconceived notions of how things ought to be challenged.