This sounds like an issue I faced when using this type of menu recently. I worked around the issue by adding a nested ul with one item that duplicated the parent's href. I used the text in the nested link as extra information about the parent link and also as a label for the page when that is the current page. Below is a link to this job so you can see what I mean. Check out the "Term Dates" and the "OSA" links in the main navigation.
http://www.strathcona.vic.edu.au/ Joel Birch
