Node: parentNode property

{{APIRef("DOM")}}
The read-only 
parentNode property of the {{domxref("Node")}} interface
returns the parent of the specified node in the DOM tree.
Document and 
DocumentFragment nodes can never have a parent, so
parentNode will always return 
null.
It also returns 
null if the node has just been created
and is not yet attached to the tree. {{domxref("Node.parentElement")}} on the other hand only returns 
Element nodes.
Value
A {{domxref("Node")}} that is the parent of the current node. The parent of an element is
an 
Element node, a 
Document node, or a 
DocumentFragment node.
Example
Using parentNode
This example removes a node from the tree, unless it's not in the tree already.
if (node.parentNode) {
  node.parentNode.removeChild(node);
}
Specifications
{{Specifications}}
Browser compatibility
{{Compat}}
See also
{{Domxref("Node.firstChild")}}
{{Domxref("Node.lastChild")}}
{{Domxref("Node.childNodes")}}
{{Domxref("Node.nextSibling")}}
{{Domxref("Node.parentElement")}}
{{Domxref("Node.previousSibling")}}
{{Domxref("Node.removeChild")}}