"A family located in North London wants to find an extraordinary and experienced educator to assist their most junior child on his early path to turning into an British gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily overlook the phrase "first-steps" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the crucial aspect of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to hire a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of applications have now been submitted since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted interest in the media, with several wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that despite first doubt, he viewed the plan "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he said they recognized the unconventional character of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already set in".
What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had adopted "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family informed him they did not want history to happen again with their younger child.
The plan: To bring in a UK tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the development at the beginning here is kind of acquired indirectly," said Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will adopt the English characteristics they aim to instil.
Adam said the tutor must be someone who studied at "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a diverse set of passions.
More than that though, he said the family desired the tutor to register the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son develop into a "English gentleman" will result in accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he comments.
But, despite all this instruction in "UK identity", would the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the globally influenced family he resides with regardless?
"Absolutely", answered the CEO. "The parents understand this may not work, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the private teaching field who share similar doubts.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who provides private tutors, commented that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of childhood, and had been raised experiencing and embodying both cultures. He progressed to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that an individual can act as a living vessel of Britishness, an individual who can somehow transplant the qualities of a UK sophisticate to a infant child, appears optimistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a quintessentially English tutor from early childhood will not automatically produce the outcome they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to experience numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, self-identity can not be imposed from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something the CEO hopes can be taught – and sold.
"I think the reality that the world holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
