New Post: ie8 and script errors

Please bear with me as I'm very new to sharepoint, jquery, and spservices. I am using the script below for cascade drop down and have found that it works fine in ie9 but throws errors in ie8.

Looking under f12 in ie9, it looks like errors occur there too but I guess they are just ignored. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to fix or make this work with ie8?

The error:

SCRIPT5022: Syntax error, unrecognized expression: unsupported pseudo: child 
jquery.min.js, line 2 character 59313
SCRIPT32811: Element not found.
 
init.js?rev=yOq8IoAABYCtaZjMVrjxtg%3D%3D, line 1946 character 4

The script:

<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="/_LAYOUTS/1033/SCRIPTS/spservices/jquery.SPServices-0.7.2.min.js"></script>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$().SPServices.SPCascadeDropdowns({ 
    relationshipList: "Employees",
    relationshipListParentColumn: "Title",
    relationshipListChildColumn: "DepartmentName",
    parentColumn: "Employee",
    childColumn: "Department",
        selectSingleOption:true
});

});
</script>

Thanks!
Chris