Country singer Parker McCollum says he wants his two young sons to inherit the same slower, outdoor-centered upbringing that shaped him on his family’s Texas ranch, even as his music career keeps him on the road much of the year.
McCollum and his wife, Hallie Ray, welcomed their second son in July. He recently spent several days at the family ranch with his older boy, 2-year-old Major, bringing the toddler along while he worked.
“I was taking him with me to kind of, you know, just do some ranch stuff,” McCollum told OutKick OutDoors in an exclusive interview. “He can’t really. He just kind of stands out there and pulls grass out of the ground while I’m working or whatever.”
Major isn’t old enough to pitch in yet, but McCollum says he remembers being that age himself, tagging along before he was big enough to really help.
“I remember those days so vividly. My dad would get me out of school early on a Friday to go down to the lease or the ranch or whatever, and we would let it rip all weekend. And a lot of times it was just him and I. To say that I look forward to doing that for him and with him is an understatement.”
Hunting has run through McCollum’s life since childhood. In a 2022 interview with NRA Country, the Texas native described bird hunting with his father around age 8 with a single-shot .410 shotgun, calling his dad one of his favorite hunting partners. In a 2024 interview with Audacy, he recalled crying as a young boy when relatives left for hunting trips without him because he was too young to go.
Once he was old enough, the outdoors became a constant in his life, including summers spent working cattle and branding steers at his grandfather’s ranch alongside his cousins.
A Deliberate Slowdown
McCollum says he hopes Major and his younger brother, Rocker, grow up with that same connection to the land — and that the goal has little to do with how much game ends up in the truck.
“There is nothing I love more than sitting in a tree in East Texas or South Texas or the Midwest. Even if you don’t see a dadgum deer,” he told OutKick OutDoors. “There’s just something about it that’s so good for your soul.”
He described the family’s ranch trips as intentionally unstructured, a break from the packed schedules that dominate much of modern life.
“Our whole intention was just slowing it down and turning it off and just spending time as a family, and no agenda. We wake up late and cook breakfast, and hunt in the evenings, and crockpot dinner, and ride around.”
For McCollum, that unhurried pace is the real inheritance he hopes to pass down to his sons.
“Don’t ever get so busy or worried about other stuff that you forget to do this.”
