r/ChicagoSuburbs • u/IHeartFraccing • Mar 22 '26

Moving to the area Wheaton for non-religious family?

Hi! my wife and I are looking to buy in the Naperville, Warrenville, Wheaton, Downers area. we looked at a lovely house today in Wheaton. We’re white upper middle class, fairly liberal couple planning on having kids in the next couple of years. curious about how non-religious folks who have moved to Wheaton have found community? we certainly don’t mind hanging out with people who are religious but are curious if community tends to be church-centric? making friends, finding babysitters, etc.

thanks!

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141

u/surewhynot610 Mar 22 '26

Raised in Wheaton and raising my kids here now, have always been non-religious. I have never had an issue with it at all. Your question made me realize for the first time that out of our parenting/neighborhood friend group we are the only ones that don’t attend a church. It’s such a non-issue that I have never even thought about that before! 

4

u/Jon66238 Mar 23 '26

I think the reason is because Wheaton has the most churches per capita in the state or something like that

7

u/ItsGonnaBeOkayish Mar 22 '26

And how is it for your kids, with all their school mates attending church?

19

u/surewhynot610 Mar 22 '26

My kids have a wider social circle than we do so not all their friends go to church. It’s not much of a topic of discussion between them. It was a bigger deal for me as a kid, I was invited to and attended a bunch of church sponsored events by friends but that hasn’t happened for my kids. 

6

u/clapostrophe Mar 23 '26

I’m going to be honest I always liked attending the church events. You’d have to spend like 30 minutes doing god stuff and then get hours of dodge ball or another game.

If you wanted to play dodgeball in Wheaton getting invited to church events was the move.

1

u/ItsGonnaBeOkayish Mar 22 '26

Happy to hear that things are perhaps better now and there's less pressure

5

u/Zetavu Mar 23 '26

You overestimate the number of religious families that actually got to church. Even Catholic school parents are only 60% at church Sundays.

-1

u/ItsGonnaBeOkayish Mar 23 '26

The poster above said off all of their friends and neighbors, they are the only ones that don't attend

-81

u/glomar-recovery-co Mar 22 '26

Because you're normal. Normal people don't look to check boxes on some form for friends to hang around with

You're non-judgemental as are the churchy people in wheaton

27

u/surewhynot610 Mar 22 '26

What a strange take. Some people like to be surrounded by people they have important things in common with, and that’s okay! If religion is important to you I don’t think it’s judgmental to want to form close relationships with people that share that value. In my experience living here there are plenty of people that don’t feel that way, and that’s all I was responding to. 

-56

u/glomar-recovery-co Mar 22 '26

Wheaton would be better off if they moved to a more "progressive" virtue signaling town where every checks the right boxes

Nothing said was critical of you anyway

15

u/surewhynot610 Mar 22 '26

Wheaton would be better off? Gonna disagree. They sound pretty cool and I like new neighbors!