Question

.parent() is not returning the parent element that I’m specifying. I don’t see any problems with my code or html.

Javascript:

var vehicle = function () {
    return {
        init: function () {
            var that = this;

            jQuery('.vehicle-year-profile .options .delete').bind('click', function (e) {
                e.preventDefault();
                console.log(e.currentTarget); //  [a.close #]
                that.remove(jQuery(e.currentTarget).parent('.vehicle-year-profile'));
            });
        },
        remove: function (el) {
            console.log(el); // []
            jQuery(el).remove();
        }
    }
}();
jQuery(function() {
    vehicle.init();
});

HTML:

    <div id="vehicle-101031994" class="vehicle-year-profile">
                                        <div class="left">
                                            <h4>1994</h4>
                                        </div>
                                        <div class="right options">
                                            <a class="edit" href="#"><img class="icon-small" src="/image/icons/pencil.png"></a>
                                            <a class="delete" href="#"><img class="icon-small" src="/image/icons/delete.png"></a>
                                        </div>
                                        <div class="clear"></div>
</div>

Answer 1

This is because

The .parents() and .parent() methods are similar, except that the latter only travels a single level up the DOM tree.

the parent you are looking for is two levels up, so you’ll have to use .parents() (or even better .closest()).