Pokemon trainers are the worst. They're perfect kids that grew up to be perfect adults. Pokemon Trainers get more fame than Poke-wood movie stars. Every little kid wants to be one when they turn eleven. I know I sure did, and I almost was. But it takes six Pokemon to even be in the ranks of a common "Pokemon Master" and people don't realize how expensive it can be to feed six Pokemon, let alone one. When you're on a nomadic quest across the country, there's no way to make money.
You usually have to stay in a city for a while to hold down a job long enough to get a paycheck or two and then move on. That's where most trainers stop being trainers and enter the real world. They get too exhausted training their Pokemon and finally settle down or return home. Those that are able to focus on training and go through with their Masters usually come from money. That money usually comes from two of the highest-paying occupations. Scientists and Gym Leaders. That's why most Gyms are family-run, the offspring are the only ones able to afford the whole journey.
That's another thing. I've never understood "the journey." It's some strange cultural phenomenon that's been around for ages that says "your eleven now, time to become a man and go on this life-altering journey without your parents!" But we're told it's okay because we're usually sent in groups of multiple children with guardian (wild) Pokemon. And public television kept drilling the idea into our head that we'd get to choose from the state-regulation Pokemon: Squirtle, Charmander, or Bulbasaur. I was dead-set on getting a Charmander so that once it was fully evolved I would fly Charizard to the school house and burn it down and Ms Finkle with it. But state regulation Pokemon was too expensive to keep buying and breeding from a Pokemon that's nearly extinct in the wild. Instead we got different, state-APPROVED Pokemon.