I have a table essentially: name has_children parent_id row_id values0.....valuesn parent 1 1 1 children 0 1 2 children 0 1 3 parent 0 4 4 parent 1 5 5 children 0 5 6 children 0 5 7 the values for the children can be different than the values for the parent. i want some selects/joins that will filter the table on a value column (i.e. 10) and will return the parent (even if false for the filter) if one of it's children is true for the filter. acceptable return: parent=true all children=false, return just parent parent=false >=1 children=true, return parent and one non-filtered child i'm sure this has been thought about before but i don't have the faintest idea how to phrase the question to find a solution.