( CNN ) -- Amid all the talk of helicopter parents and Tiger Moms , let us now praise Stealth Dads . Not to be confused with the Absentee Father , who flamboyantly disappoints , the Stealth Dad exceeds expectations without drawing attention to himself . I am the son of a Stealth Dad , as are a number of my friends . Several have lost their Stealth Dads in recent years . For the rest of us , time is precious . The Stealth Dad is at the end of a good run . Social media has made stealth unfashionable , with every utterance now an exhibition . And private family milestones have been outsourced to consultants . When I read about the parent hiring a coach to teach a kid to ride a bike , I mourned for the Stealth Dad . In the end , the passing of a generation will finish the job . Demographers William Strauss and Neil Howe describe Americans born between 1925 and 1942 as the Silent Generation . This is the rich vein of Stealth Dad ore . Stuck between Greatest Generation heroes and look-at-us Boomers , the Silent Generation never produced a U.S. president . Instead , say Strauss and Howe , Silents became America 's `` facilitators and technocracts . '' Silents had ready access to college and jobs and avoided heavy war casualties . Silents experienced other frustrations , forever the `` gap '' in the Generation Gap that divided World War II leadership from 1960s revolutionaries . Strauss and Howe explain that , for Silents , `` their solutions -- fairness , openness , due process , expertise -- reflect a lack of surefootedness , but also a keen sense of how and why humans fall short of grand civic plans or ideal moral standards . Silent appeals for change have seldom arisen from power or fury , but rather through a self-conscious humanity and tender social conscience . '' I like the notion of a tender social conscience . It fits my own Stealth Dad , who married the pretty girl at a Wake Forest College picnic , became a math teacher and then the principal who peacefully integrated the high school in the town of Garner , North Carolina . He served for years as an associate superintendent in Wake County , indispensable in the technocrat role . Once retired , he worked as the business manager for a church . Now , at 76 , Wayne Bare keeps marshmallows in his pocket , for his granddaughter Leah . My close friends and I are also generational misfits , too young to be authentic Boomers and too old to line up neatly with Gen X. Stealth Dad attended some , not all , of our sporting events . When Stealth Dad was there , he never threw a tantrum . When he was n't there , we behaved as if he was . In crisis , Stealth Dad lowers the volume . Stealth Dad does n't speak up unless he can improve upon the silence . Stealth Dad is parsimonious with counsel . Having been spared a thousand aphorisms , we had no choice but to direct our attention to the specific Stealth Dad behaviors plainly predictive of a successful life . Stealth Dad puts fairness above nearly everything else . I walked to my elementary school . On the few rainy days when my Stealth Dad would drive me , he used our family car . Then he drove back home and set out for the office in a county-owned car provided by the school system . This vehicle was only to be used for work . While he follows rules , Stealth Dad challenges authority . Back in 1968 , when many country clubs where still accessible only to whites , my Stealth Dad appointed an African-American man , James Farris , to be golf coach for our town 's newly integrated high school . My Stealth Dad was in the audience last month when Farris was inducted into the Garner Athletics Hall of Fame . In the Baptist church we attended through my childhood , there came a time when one half of the congregation grew furious at the other half . If you have spent time in Baptist churches , this is not as consequential as it sounds . Yet in this case , the dispute could not be settled without a public airing of grievances . The hearing would take place during a business meeting that would follow the Sunday service . The only thing the feuding groups could agree on was that my Stealth Dad would facilitate , from the pulpit . There I sat in the church balcony , like Scout Finch looking down at the trial below , learning to turn off the fury and manifest self-conscious humanity . On good days , I can pull it off myself . Happy Father 's Day to Stealth Dads everywhere .
John Bare : My father was part of a generation of Stealth Dads . He says today 's fathers are more likely to draw attention to themselves , in social media era . He says his father was always there for him when he needed to be . Bare : Stealth Dad does n't speak up unless he can improve on the silence .