:parent Selector

parent ( ) version added: 1.0

Description: Select all elements that have at least one child node (either an element or text).

This is the inverse of :empty.

One important thing to note regarding the use of :parent (and :empty) is that child nodes include text nodes.

The W3C recommends that the <p> element have at least one child node, even if that child is merely text (see http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#edef-P). Some other elements, on the other hand, are empty (i.e. have no children) by definition: <input>, <img>, <br>, and <hr>, for example.

To obtain the parents or ancestors of an existing jQuery set, see the .parent() and .parents() methods.

Examples:

Example: Finds all tds with children, including text. 

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>css demo</title>

  <style>

  td {
    width: 40px;
    background: green;
  }

  </style>

  <script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
  

<table border="1">
  <tr><td>Value 1</td><td></td></tr>
  <tr><td>Value 2</td><td></td></tr>
</table>

<script>

$( "td:parent" ).fadeTo( 1500, 0.3 );

</script>

  
</body>
</html>

Demo: