>I disagree that WPARENT() is different than other OOP Parent references.

WPARENT is not oop, period.

See Marcia's solution for a better (as in an oop) way to do what you want, and it's not complicated, just for that one task.

I'm not going to debate W***() functions further, I can see we disagree.

Probably the most problematic for you is that the behavior you are now seeing with WPARENT is more-or-less "by accident" and may well behave differently (or not at all) in future vfp versions. W***() functions are throwbacks to pre-oop days, and I don't know anyone who uses them anymore.

Besides, that darn WONTOP always made me hungry every time I saw it, reminding me of WONTONs.