Swimming and socialization

A question often asked of homeschoolers by skeptical or curious onlookers is "What about socialization?". My answer to a serious inquiry involves a discussion of true socialization is teaching children to adapt socially to their culture, and where better can they learn that than within a family? I will often also ask the person forming the query whether they ONLY work with people the exact same age, and for the most part the same social background....because in a traditional school setting you will find a classroom with 25-30 children the same age (not at all necessarily of the same ability) and because school district lines are formed around neighbourhood boundries, you will also find that those children all basically have the same economical and often racial background as well...which we just don't find in a common workplace today. Sometimes a simple list of activities, and groups my children are a part of satisfies the asker. But, when I know that the person asking is just being argumentative, I have been known to come back a little snippily myself, challenging them with the commonly heard statement in school by a teacher of chatty classes - "We are not here to socialize people!" or even the quote Tracy reminded me of (I think originally by Lisa Welchel) - "I know, socialization is a problem...we really have to cut back and get some school work done!"
Yesterday was devoted to socialization! We went swimming with Tracy, Cheri, and the other 5 children that involves! We had a really fun time. Cheri was mortified to hear that Amelia had never been swimming at the ripe old age of 19 months - so a swim date was offered to us! Amelia took to the water just like a fish! She thought it was amazing! Grace went down the slide all by herself, and even got her face wet a few times! Olivia and Caitlin were somewhere, I don't really know where - which just goes to show how great having a daily swimming time at camp was for her water confidence! Not to mention MY confidence in her water ability! I am really looking forward to swimming lessons this year, because I am sure she will do much better now that she is less afraid! Grace as well, if we keep going to public swimming, just to play and be in the water, I am sure it will help her confidence level in the water as well - so she can progress in lessons this time. To ensure that we will go to the pool, I bought a 3 month family pass to the leisure centres. That way we can go swimming, and Greg can go and workout at the gym there.
After swimming we went to Cheri's for lunch and the kids had a great time playing together, until it was time for us to leave and pick up Greg from work!
Now nay-sayers and skeptics would be upset that we got no academic work done yesterday...but I am sticking with the response that there was no school is Strasbourg yesterday, so we were having a day off too! Ha!
C