"Parents based in north London wants to find an remarkable and skilled instructor to support their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might easily miss the term "beginning" as mere an expression.
Yet, it might be the crucial aspect of this unusual job advert, as it seeks to find a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of responses have now been received since the anonymous family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has attracted attention across the press, with several questioning why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their quest, said that notwithstanding early doubt, he considered the idea "visionary", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he noted they appreciated the unconventional character of their request, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural influence had by then set in".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he replied. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He explained the older sibling had picked up "really subtle, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family informed him they hoped to prevent the same situation to repeat itself with their new baby.
The intention: To bring in a UK tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the development at the beginning here is rather absorbed naturally," stated Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will adopt the UK customs they want to cultivate.
He explained the tutor needed to be an individual who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed him the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in equestrian activities, winter sports, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
More than that though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "English gentleman" will result in achievement and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he comments.
But, in spite of all this tutelage in "English culture", could the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the international family he lives with regardless?
"Absolutely", said Adam. "The family understand this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as quickly as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the private teaching field who share those doubts.
An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who also offer individual instructors, commented that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert noted that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been educated knowing and embodying dual heritages. He went on to study at Cambridge University.
"The idea that an individual can act as a embodiment of UK identity, an individual who can somehow impart the qualities of a British gentleman upon a infant child, seems to me naive and unrealistic," he stated.
"In my experience, employing a quintessentially English tutor from infancy will not automatically produce the goal they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live several of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, personal identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something the CEO thinks can be instructed – and sold.
"I think the situation that the global community holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
