"A household located in North London is looking for an extraordinary and experienced educator to guide their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might easily overlook the wording "initial stages" as just a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the crucial part of this unique employment listing, as it aims to hire a tutor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of responses have since been submitted since the unidentified family advertised their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the advert has gained attention in the news, with many questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their quest, stated that despite early doubt, he found the idea "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they understood the atypical character of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already become established".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", he responded. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the firstborn had adopted "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family told him they wished to avoid history to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To engage a English tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the education at the beginning here is rather absorbed naturally," said Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will pick up the British traits they aim to impart.
Adam said the tutor needed to be somebody who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Money No Object
The family explained to Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in horse riding, skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to influence the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he said the family desired the tutor to register the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son become a "English gentleman" will result in success and open doors.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.
Yet, notwithstanding all this guidance in "English culture", might the child pick up what is termed cultural leaning from the multicultural family he resides with anyway?
"Absolutely", said Adam. "The parents understand this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'we should try and we should start as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the tutoring industry who share similar doubts.
Peter Cui, head and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies personal educators, commented that "the process of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert noted that he had relocated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the time of childhood, and had been raised knowing and living two backgrounds. He continued to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that one individual can function as a embodiment of Britishness, an individual who can in some way transplant the qualities of a English gentleman to a infant child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he stated.
"Based on my background, having a quintessentially UK tutor from babyhood will does not instantly achieve the goal they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and however I have been lucky enough to live several of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He added: "The truth is, personal identity should not be dictated from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, UK identity is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and marketed.
"In my view the reality that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
