"Parents located in the northern part of London is looking for an remarkable and skilled educator to guide their most junior child on his first steps to turning into an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might naturally overlook the term "first-steps" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the crucial part of this unusual job advert, as it seeks to find a tutor for a infant.
Hundreds of submissions have now been sent in since the unidentified family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has attracted attention across the press, with numerous questioning why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their search, stated that in spite of initial doubt, he considered the idea "visionary", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he said they appreciated the atypical nature of their demand, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already set in".
But what does the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert responded. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the firstborn had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family explained to him they did not want the same situation to repeat itself with their new baby.
The strategy: To hire a British tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to influence the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the education at the beginning here is kind of osmotic," stated the CEO.
It's through this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will adopt the UK customs they aim to impart.
Adam explained the tutor must be an individual who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Money No Object
The family informed him the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in riding, winter sports, creative fields and music so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Furthermore though, he said the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will result in success and provide access.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he comments.
Yet, notwithstanding all this instruction in "English culture", might the child pick up what is termed cultural influence from the international family he is raised by regardless?
"Yes", answered the CEO. "They realize this might not succeed, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he said.
Impractical
Several in the tutoring industry who share these reservations.
An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who provides individual instructors, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
The expert explained that he had relocated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the time of seven, and had been raised experiencing and embodying two backgrounds. He went on to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that a single person can act as a living vessel of Britishness, a person who can in some way impart the characteristics of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unfeasible," he stated.
"In my experience, employing a typically English tutor from babyhood will will not automatically create the goal they want.
"I wasn't provided with such a figure, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to experience many of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, cultural identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, UK identity is something the CEO believes can be educated – and sold.
"I think the situation that the global community regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
