hide propery in nested self refenced entity in API Platform v3 - symfony

Question

I have a self referenced entity where the $children property shows me which are the children of a specific category. But that property is also present for each $parent (and also children's children).
Is it possible to hide the $children for every nested relation, but show it for requested resource?
Category.php
<?php
namespace App\Entity;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\ApiResource;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\Get;
use ApiPlatform\Metadata\GetCollection;
use Doctrine\Common\Collections\ArrayCollection;
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Gedmo\Mapping\Annotation as Gedmo;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Annotation\Groups;
use Symfony\Component\Validator\Constraints as Assert;
#[ApiResource(
operations: [
new Get(normalizationContext: ["groups" => ["category", "category_item"]]),
new GetCollection(),
]
)]
#[ORM\Entity]
class Category
{
#[ORM\Id]
#[ORM\Column]
#[ORM\GeneratedValue]
private ?int $id = null;
#[ORM\ManyToOne(targetEntity: Category::class)]
#[Groups(["category_item"])]
private $parent;
#[ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity: Category::class, mappedBy: "parent")]
#[Groups(["category_item"])]
private $children;
#[ORM\Column]
#[Assert\NotBlank()]
#[Groups(["category"])]
private $name;
public function __construct()
{
$this->children = new ArrayCollection();
}
public function getId(): ?int
{
return $this->id;
}
public function setParent(Category $parent = null)
{
$this->parent = $parent;
return $this;
}
public function getParent()
{
return $this->parent;
}
public function getChildren()
{
return $this->children;
}
public function setName($name)
{
$this->name = $name;
return $this;
}
public function getName()
{
return $this->name;
}
}
Sample data
ID
parent
name
1
NULL
root
2
1
child-1
3
1
child-2
4
1
child-3
5
2
child-1-1
6
2
child-1-2
7
5
child-1-1-1
8
7
child-1-1-1-1
If I do a GET request to /categories/5, I get this response
{
"#context": "/contexts/Category",
"#id": "/categories/5",
"#type": "Category",
"parent": {
"#id": "/categories/2",
"#type": "Category",
"parent": {
"#id": "/categories/1",
"#type": "Category",
"children": [
"/categories/2",
{
"#id": "/categories/3",
"#type": "Category",
"parent": "/categories/1",
"children": [],
"name": "child-2"
},
{
"#id": "/categories/4",
"#type": "Category",
"parent": "/categories/1",
"children": [],
"name": "child-3"
}
],
"name": "root"
},
"children": [
"/categories/5",
{
"#id": "/categories/6",
"#type": "Category",
"parent": "/categories/2",
"children": [],
"name": "child-1-2"
}
],
"name": "child-1"
},
"children": [
{
"#id": "/categories/7",
"#type": "Category",
"parent": "/categories/5",
"children": [
{
"#id": "/categories/8",
"#type": "Category",
"parent": "/categories/7",
"children": [],
"name": "child-1-1-1-1"
}
],
"name": "child-1-1-1"
}
],
"name": "child-1-1"
}
I would like to get a reponse like this where children is missing in every parent
{
"#context": "/contexts/Category",
"#id": "/categories/5",
"#type": "Category",
"parent": {
"#id": "/categories/2",
"#type": "Category",
"parent": {
"#id": "/categories/1",
"#type": "Category",
"name": "root"
},
"name": "child-1"
},
"children": [
{
"#id": "/categories/7",
"#type": "Category",
"parent": "/categories/5",
"name": "child-1-1-1"
}
],
"name": "child-1-1"
}
I've tryied using maxdepth annotation and it works for children's children (note the missing child-1-1-1-1 in the example above). But I need the parents to have no children at all.
#[ORM\OneToMany(targetEntity: Category::class, mappedBy: "parent")]
#[Groups(["category_item"])]
#[MaxDepth(1)]
private $children;