In this case, I needed two children elements, one would be centered vertically in the column, and the other would be at the top of the column, but they would not effect each others position. I could only make one where the two elements were next to each other, or they effected each others positions, so the centered element was not actually centered. I ended up putting in three elements, the bottom one the same size as the top, but hidden, so the center element would stick between the two.