"A household residing in north London is looking for an exceptional and experienced instructor to support their most junior child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might naturally miss the wording "first-steps" as mere figurative language.
However, it could be the most important part of this unusual job advert, as it seeks to hire a tutor for a infant.
Many of submissions have since been submitted since the unidentified family advertised their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has gained attention throughout the media, with numerous questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their search, stated that despite first skepticism, he considered the plan "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical aspect of their request, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", Adam answered. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He said the elder child had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family told Adam they did not want this pattern to repeat itself with their new baby.
The strategy: To bring in a UK tutor, who must speak with RP, to shape the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the development at the outset here is somewhat osmotic," said the CEO.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will acquire the British traits they aim to cultivate.
He said the tutor needed to be someone who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Money No Object
The family informed Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in riding, skiing, creative fields and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a wide range of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son grow into a "UK sophisticate" will lead to achievement and create opportunities.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he notes.
But, despite all this instruction in "English culture", might the child pick up alleged cultural leaning from the international family he is raised by in any case?
"Yes", answered the CEO. "The family understand this might not succeed, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the private teaching field who have these reservations.
Peter Cui, chief executive of a tutoring service, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the process of becoming bicultural, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
He noted that he had relocated from China to the UK at the period of seven, and had been brought up experiencing and living two backgrounds. He went on to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The concept that an individual can act as a living vessel of Britishness, an individual who can possibly transplant the attributes of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, appears optimistic and unrealistic," he commented.
"Based on my background, engaging a typically UK tutor from infancy will does not instantly create the outcome they want.
"I wasn't provided with such a figure, and however I have been fortunate enough to live many of the experiences they hope for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, personal identity should not be dictated from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Of course, UK identity is something the expert thinks can be educated – and commercialized.
"I believe the situation that the international society holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
