A long YouTube comment from kiana mai art says:
As a cartoon mom fan this video was made for me. All great takes. Praying emoji.
But also I am here in defense of Delia Ketchum who I feel like most people don't know a lot about. I could talk about her forever. I apologize for the essay I'm about to write. On the surface she can come off as an absent mother but there's so much lore about her that we unfortunately don't get in the anime and have to dig for, but it explains so much about her behavior and how she parents. Most of her backstory is in former head writer Takeshi Shudo's Pocket Monsters The Animation Novel.
You're definitely right in that it's normal for ten year olds to get a trainer's license and just leave so it's not weird for Delia to let Ash just go out into the world. You kinda have to buy into the fact that the Pokémon universe is a dangerous one but in a cartoony way that ten year olds are somehow capable of taking care of themselves haha.
In the novel, we learn that Delia wanted to be a trainer herself as a kid but her mother didn't allow her to follow those dreams because she was an only child and was set to take over the family restaurant. She does as she's told for the sake of her family but still longs for adventure. To me, this explains why she encourages Ash to follow his dreams. She doesn't want to hold him back like her own mother did.
It was a massive act of selflessness on her part but, to get why, we need to go deeper. When she was younger, her father left on a journey and never came back. Then, when she was eighteen or nineteen, she married Ash's father who, right after Ash was born, left on a journey and never came back. Shortly after that, her mother passed away. As a teenager, she was left with only her restaurant and newborn Ash. The novel brings up her lingering fear of being abandoned and left for a dream. When Ash leaves, she acknowledges that, like his father, he might never come back. But she knows that becoming a trainer means everything to him so she lets him go. There's a lovely passage in the novel when Ash gets to the next town and calls her. Delia has a moment of happiness and reflection. She remembers how her father and her husband never contacted her after leaving. After Ash hangs up, she then whispers to herself "All I wanted was to be contacted."
We also see her not make a big deal out of Ash leaving on each next journey because, after her husband left, she promised to never have a teary goodbye ever again. She also knows that Ash has a big heart and, if she showed any sign of sadness when he leaves, he'd drop everything to be with her, again going back to how she doesn't wanna hold him back. In those episodes where he goes off at the end of each season, we see her cheering him on and ushering him out of the house. But there's always a light pause where, with the context of her backstory, you can tell she's sad. She's scared. She's afraid he won't come back. But she cheers him on anyways and will always be there with a clean house, hot meal and made bed for him to come back to if he so chooses. It's a nice parallel to the Pokémon games where the mom NPC never leaves home and is always there to heal you up when you choose to go back to your character's house! I feel like most players never go back home and opt to just go to a Pokémon center and play the game. But I definitely try to go back to the character's house and see the mom character whenever I remember hehe.
It's also in the later seasons, but Delia goes and visits Ash when she can afford to take a break from work! She's gone and watched his school plays and presentations and checks up on him when she can. So in conclusion, good mom. Love this mom. I care here. Heart emoticon.
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