"Parents located in North London wants to find an remarkable and experienced tutor to support their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might readily miss the wording "initial stages" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it might be the crucial part of this unique job advert, as it attempts to find a mentor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of submissions have now been received since the anonymous family advertised their call for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has attracted notice across the media, with several questioning why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their hunt, stated that despite initial doubt, he considered the idea "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he said they understood the atypical character of their request, and how early in age their son is.
But, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural influence had already become established".
What exactly does the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", the expert responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the firstborn had adopted "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family informed him they did not want this pattern to happen again with their new baby.
The plan: To engage a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the development at the outset here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained Adam.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will adopt the British traits they aim to cultivate.
He said the tutor must be someone who studied at "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed him the successful candidate should preferably also have familiarity of or interest in equestrian activities, skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to shape the child in a diverse set of passions.
More than that though, he explained the family desired the tutor to register the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about success and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he adds.
However, notwithstanding all this guidance in "UK identity", would the child absorb so-called cultural influence from the globally influenced family he resides with regardless?
"Yes", answered the CEO. "The parents know this may not work, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as soon as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he said.
Impractical
There are some in the education sector who share these reservations.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides private tutors, commented that "the process of becoming bicultural, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been raised experiencing and living both cultures. He continued to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that one individual can act as a living vessel of Britishness, an individual who can possibly impart the qualities of a British gentleman upon a one-year-old child, appears optimistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a typically English tutor from infancy will not instantly achieve the result they want.
"I never had such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to experience many of the situations they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, cultural identity should not be imposed from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something the CEO hopes can be educated – and sold.
"I believe the situation that the international society holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
