But as I’ve watched, with varying degrees of disbelief and disgust, the circus surrounding the fate of this child, I find myself following a slender thread that winds back to Rowan County, and the recent turmoil at one of our schools.

That thread concerns the role of fathers in their children’s lives, and the mixed messages we continue to send about it.

While there may be some gray areas amid this political and judicial charade, one thing seems dead certain to me: If it had been the boy’s father who perished at sea — if it were a tearful mother waiting in Cuba — there would be no debate about what’s best for Elian.

There would be no protests, no courtroom machinations, no Congressional hearings. There would be no delay.

Had the father died, the boy would simply have been sent back home to his mother, because we all know that’s where little boys belong.

Yet, because it is merely his father who wants him back, we can see fit to suspend the paternal imperative and entertain the possibility that Disneyworld might be an adequate substitute for dad. Because it is only the sperm donor who survived, a few Republican congressmen — valiant defenders of family values — dare suggest that having the right fatherland somehow takes precedence over having the right father.

And we wonder why young men casually father children and abandon them. We wonder why so many many children — especially adolescent boys — seem rootless, unruly and devoid of respect for authority.

We blame a breakdown of cultural values. We blame poverty. We blame drugs and alcohol. We blame the media for promoting promiscuity.

We blame everyone except ourselves, and the many subtle and unsubtle ways in which we suggest that men really aren’t that important to their children.

Is a father who sacrifices himself on the altar of the holy workplace and corporate profits somehow better than a deadbeat dad? When the mayor of Charlotte deems it worthy to publicly honor a basketball player who has just left his two children fatherless because he did a stupid thing in a fast car, what sort of message does that send about the value of celebrity, versus the value of being a responsible father?

The problem of absent fathers isn’t a black problem or an inner city problem or a welfare problem. It’s our problem. Behind the placid lawns of suburbia, fathers are absent, too. We’re just absent in different ways.

Which brings me back to Rowan County, and the problems at North Middle School. Having lived here only two months, I won’t presume to weigh in with uninformed opinions on structural problems at the school. I don’t know the kids involved, don’t know the parents involved, don’t know the administrators and teachers involved.

But this much I do know: Round up the worst troublemakers, sit the boys down in a room — and I suspect most of the hardcore hooligans are boys — and somehow get them to drop the swaggering postures and adolescent attitudes long enough to tell you about their relationships with their fathers. — and I think I know what you’ll hear.

Mumbles, empty stares, embarrassed silences. These are kids who aren’t getting fathered in any meaningful way. They may not come from broken homes, but they come from homes where something is broken.

Mothers can do a lot. Some can even raise up fine young men on their own, but they’re the exception. A child without a father is like a bicycle with one wheel — perpetually out of balance and near impossible to control.

There’s a point in a boy’s life — somewhere between 10 and 13, in my limited experience — where his sphere of influence naturally begins to shift away from the mother, to the father. He wants to be with dad, needs to be with dad. And if dad isn’t there, physically and emotionally, it opens a void he’ll spend a lifetime trying to fill.

When a parent complains that the North Rowan Middle principal sometimes deals with unruly kids by giving them a hug, I know where she’s coming from. I’ll go to any lengths to make sure my child gets a good education.

But I suspect the principal knows where some of these kids are coming from, too.

And it isn’t a place where they get many fatherly hugs.