Fathers who don?t see their children are not always absent by choice. Sometimes the courts of the children?s mother prevents them from being involved in the lives of their children.

That?s the message sent by Alvin Goulbourne, from the Father?s Resource Centre, who was interviewed by The Royal Gazette as part of its series on young black men.

A lack of father figures in young black youth?s lives is often cited as a factor when they become alienated or join gangs.

But Mr. Goulbourne said not all fathers are ?deadbeats?.

?The Father?s Resource Centre is pushing for awareness and fairness. We want to get rid of the whole idea of sole (parent) custody,? he said. ?We want there to be a presumption of joint physical custody.

?Just because a child?s parents get divorced, he should not lose either a mother or a father.

?But we are not wanting the pendulum to swing the other way completely so that fathers have sole custody,? he said. ?No. We want a whole new paradigm. We want it so that if the parents get divorced the child still has his mother and his father.

?The real message I want to send out is to stop the factors which hinder the court system from working fairly and the factors which stop a father?s involvement.

?It?s a little disingenuous on one hand to say that we want to have fathers more involved in their children?s lives, but on the other hand, when fathers go to court, officials are taking fathers out of the picture, giving sole custody to the mother and making the father pay custody which often he can hardly afford.?

Mr. Goulbourne?s commitment to promoting good fathering dates back to his own struggle with the break-up of his family.

?I went through a divorce and I lost my kids. Even though my wife and I were awarded joint custody it was hardly a balance,? he said, saying that the court?s decision meant he could not be as involved in his children?s lives as he had been before his divorce.

?But I do everything I can to remain a part of their life.

?The real problem as I see it, is all of the factors which push men away from being good fathers,? he said. ?And some of these factors are not obvious unless you are directly affected by them.?

Society, he says, makes men feel unnecessary as fathers.

?There are a lot of (indicators) which just point to a man and say, ?hey you?re just optional?.

?From the way to the court systems work to the initial way a divorce is reported. Even how the courts handle child support,? he said.

He said the courts put the child support payments so high that it was financially painful.

?What really gets my goat is when you hear people say that fathers have to be more interested, fathers have to be more involved,? he said.

?Many take the example of a man who gets a woman at a bar pregnant,? he said, adding that when there is no relationship between the man and woman, fathering becomes even more difficult, and at times undesired by the man.

?People will compare that situation to a devoted father who has always been supportive of his kids, but just not with the mother,? he said. ?Society throws us all into the same boat.?

But he said that being father is easier when a mother and father are partners, living together, although he admitted stable marriages will not guarantee good fathers.

?If a father is happily married, then the father can focus more on his work and still be a part of his child?s life. But even then, a father can sometimes get the parenting messed up: working overtime and you?re pushing the limits of your family obligations.

?It happens in every relationship and that?s when you realise that you need to refocus.

However, with the break-up of a marriage, not only will the relationship between a mother and father be redefined, he said, but also those between a father and his children.

When a father leaves the house, he said, especially when a break-up has been ?messy?, mothers have to be extra vigilant not to speak badly about their children?s father.

?Often a mother will make subtle negative comments about her ex after a break-up? he said. ?And that is often just when a Dad wants to get actively involved again.?

Such negativity, he said, makes being a good father even harder.

For mothers he had some advice: ?If you love your children, don?t do that to them. Recognise that their father is a part of your children and that he loves his children.

?People seem to think that divorce is a zero sum game where if a mother wins then the father must lose. But if you love your children and they have a good relationship with their father, the mother wins on several levels.

?The kids will do better in school and in their other relationships. And the mother will do better, because she will share the burden with a partner, even though he is not a physical partner.

When asked if he thought there was a ?crisis in fatherhood in Bermuda? he responded: ?There is a crisis in fatherhood whenever one father is not there,? he said.

But the real problem Mr. Goulbourne said, is the high divorce rate and ?the great lie that our community has bought into: ?Look out for number one.

?If you bring children into the world,? he said ?Then a parent can no longer think only of what is best for them. It has to be what is best for your children.?

Research has shown that divorce has long term effects on children, he said.

?In studies, 40-year-old adults will be asked ?what was the most significant event in your life?? And they?ll say, it was when my parents got divorced when I was eight years old.

Mr. Goulbourne had advice for fathers who want to be more involved but are finding themselves in difficult relationships with their children.

?Hang in there because every little thing that you do will make the world of difference to your children,? he said.

?Try to create as many memories as you can with your children. The difficult thing for men, and people don?t realise this, is that the pain is there.

?Sometimes a man will back off from his family after a painful divorce or break-up because the anger is so great and the pain is so great.

?And every time he re-engages with his family the pain is still there,? he said. ?Sometimes a man can?t deal with what that pain and so he closes himself off. Too often he is treated badly by the courts and by his children?s mother.?

The Fathers? Resource Centre offers a number of services including advice for men on parenting, pre-divorce counselling, and advice on divorce and custody issues.