css :hover only affect top div of nest

Question

Hi: got some html like:

And some css like:

Answer 1

Old question, but for those that land here I solved the issue by rethinking the html a bit to make the CSS simple. This solved my problem when creating html/css for nested ul/li tree views. Adding an item class div:

    
Parent

    

      
Child
    

Then I can apply CSS to "item" class and since item is not within item, ...within item, ...within item, the hover selector doesn't cascade up the node chain. So I colored the background of my tree view items on hover without splashing all parents.