Understanding the “Six, Seven” Phenomenon
If you’re a parent of small kids, you might find yourself asking, “Why do my children keep shouting ‘six, seven’?” This phrase is tied to a meme that has taken hold among the younger generation. Perhaps it’s best for adults to just let it happen—allowing this new generation, sometimes called the alpha generation, to express themselves with their joyful chanting without any embarrassment or alarm.
It’s all in good fun, really. This enthusiasm isn’t all that different from past trends like Gen Z’s “Yeet” or Millennial phrases like “YOLO” and “She said so.” The current chant of “six, seven” is spreading, mostly through imitation and laughter, among play areas and sports fields alike. It embodies that spontaneous joy that thinkers like Edmund Burke valued, something that many modern conservatives might want to preserve.
In-N-Out has decided to eliminate the numbers six and seven from its ticketing system due to confusion following an incident involving a camera crew and a large number of excited kids gathering at the restaurant.
Today’s kids have less room to run around, fewer opportunities to play freely, and more adults hovering with checklists than any previous generation. Shouting silly things with friends is one of the last ways they can be loud and a bit rebellious without causing any real trouble.
That said, there are moments when their exuberance might not be appropriate. For instance, Vice President J.D. Vance recently expressed frustration when his son, Vivek, couldn’t help but yell “six-seven” during a church service. Vance recounted how, during a reading from the Missal, his son became extremely animated about the numbers involved. He humorously suggested that perhaps we should consider banning those numbers altogether.
Vance tweeted, “Yesterday in church, as the Bible reading was happening from pages 66-67, my 5-year-old went totally wild, repeating ‘six-seven’ ten times. I’m starting to think we need to put a strict limit on the First Amendment regarding these numbers.”
As parents, our role is to guide our kids to understand appropriate behavior in various contexts. That said, it’s crucial not to be overly critical of things we may not fully grasp. Instead, it might be better to allow a natural resolution to unfold through social reactions.
