diff --git a/cogl/cogl-material-private.h b/cogl/cogl-material-private.h
index eb20b3860..88dbfc0e8 100644
--- a/cogl/cogl-material-private.h
+++ b/cogl/cogl-material-private.h
@@ -138,6 +138,10 @@ struct _CoglMaterialNode
   /* The parent material/layer */
   CoglMaterialNode *parent;
 
+  /* TRUE if the node took a strong reference on its parent. Weak
+   * materials for instance don't take a reference on their parent. */
+  gboolean has_parent_reference;
+
   /* As an optimization for creating leaf node materials/layers (the
    * most common) we don't require any list node allocations to link
    * to a single descendant. */
diff --git a/cogl/cogl-material.c b/cogl/cogl-material.c
index 905e0e5fd..720350821 100644
--- a/cogl/cogl-material.c
+++ b/cogl/cogl-material.c
@@ -127,6 +127,7 @@ _cogl_material_node_set_parent_real (CoglMaterialNode *node,
     }
 
   node->parent = parent;
+  node->has_parent_reference = take_strong_reference;
 
   /* Now that there is a consistent parent->child link we can remove
    * the parent reference if no reference was requested. If it turns
@@ -160,7 +161,8 @@ _cogl_material_node_unparent_real (CoglMaterialNode *node)
   else
     parent->children = g_list_remove (parent->children, node);
 
-  cogl_object_unref (parent);
+  if (node->has_parent_reference)
+    cogl_object_unref (parent);
 
   node->parent = NULL;
 }