Is there a CSS parent selector?

I have a few posts to apply specific styles to a specific or all child elements.

How to apply style only to first child and/or only to children other than the first child?

Few more :nth-child examples in CSS

How to apply style to a specific child element using CSS?

But, CSS has yet to come up with a parent selector.

By parent selector, I mean you can just literally select any element’s parent element in CSS without JavaScript.

There is a Parent Selector concept in SassScript but it’s not quite like what developers are looking for.

Here’s another post I wrote for SCSS parent selector.

Ampersand (Parent Selector) in SCSS (Sass)

:has – a new hope

The Selectors Level 4 Draft mentions a :has() pseudo-class that will have the feature developers are looking for.

:has example

The following selector matches only a elements that has an img element child:

a:has(> img){
  ...
}

The problem is :has pseudo-class is not supported in a single browser as per now.

So, till it gets a full support, we have to use libraries like jQuery or JavaScript to achieve the same goal.

Share this post