This paper invites you into the world of pediatric palliative care as experienced by children and their families, guided by the family's own logic of time – a temporality shaped by uncertainty, presence, and the proximity of death. From the positions of (health)care professionals and researchers, I explore how ethics in this field are never fixed or fully articulated, rather emergent, relational, and deeply situated within communities of care.

Pediatric palliative care is a field of sensitivity, where institutional ethical frameworks often fall short of capturing the lived complexities of families navigating life-limiting or life-threatening illnesses. I propose a temporal ethics – one that follows the rhythms of care, loss, and hope as they entangle, yet unfold in real time. With Kofoed & Staunæs’ concept of hesitancy as ethics interpreted as a free, oscillatory movement across, beyond, and within disciplines, this approach challenges dominant paradigms as procedural ethics.

Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, including pragmatism, feminist approaches to care ethics (Tronto, Gilligan, Noddings), and liminality theory (Stenner), I reflect on how research itself becomes a caring practice. Ethics is more than abstract rules – it is about affirmative meaning-making processes shaped by affective encounters and cross-cultural understandings. In this abducted temporality, where time for care and reflection is displaced by institutional demands, we must consider how to perform ethically within.

What does it mean to conduct ethically sound research in a space where hope and loss coexist – and how might a temporal ethic help us listen, hesitate, and respond in a world of institutional care, where no one seems to listen, hesitate, or respond (in time) with care?