"A household residing in North London is looking for an remarkable and experienced tutor to guide their most junior child on his first steps to turning into an British gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily skip the wording "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
However, it may be the most important element of this unusual position posting, as it seeks to hire a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have already been received since the unnamed family posted their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the advert has gained notice across the press, with many questioning why?
Innovative Idea
The CEO, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their quest, explained that notwithstanding early scepticism, he considered the plan "visionary", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he said they understood the unconventional nature of their request, and how early in age their son is.
However, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already become established".
What exactly does the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", he answered. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the firstborn had adopted "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family informed Adam they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their younger child.
The strategy: To hire a British tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the development at the outset here is kind of osmotic," explained Adam.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the British traits they want to instil.
He noted the tutor needed to be an individual who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told him the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Furthermore though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, helping their son grow into a "English gentleman" will result in achievement and create opportunities.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he notes.
Yet, notwithstanding all this guidance in "English culture", would the child pick up alleged cultural leaning from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?
"Yes", replied he. "The family know this may not work, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'we should try and let's go as early as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the private teaching field who share these reservations.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who supplies private tutors, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
He explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the period of seven, and had been brought up experiencing and practicing both cultures. He went on to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that one individual can act as a living vessel of English culture, an individual who can in some way transfer the qualities of a UK sophisticate onto a infant child, strikes me as naive and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, employing a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will not automatically achieve the goal they desire.
"I never had such a figure, and however I have been fortunate enough to live many of the experiences they hope for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, self-identity can not be imposed from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Of course, Britishness is something the CEO hopes can be educated – and sold.
"I think the situation that the global community regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
