"A household based in the northern part of London seeks an remarkable and skilled tutor to support their most junior child on his initial journey to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might easily skip the phrase "initial stages" as just an expression.
However, it may be the crucial part of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to hire a mentor for a infant.
Hundreds of submissions have already been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the advert has gained attention throughout the media, with several wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that in spite of initial doubt, he considered the concept "visionary", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he said they recognized the unconventional character of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already set in".
But what did the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert replied. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the firstborn had adopted "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family explained to Adam they did not want the same situation to repeat itself with their new baby.
The strategy: To engage a British tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the learning at the start here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's via this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will acquire the English characteristics they wish to instil.
He noted the tutor needed to be someone who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Money No Object
The family told him the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, creative fields and music so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
More than that though, he stated the family desired the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he comments.
However, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "UK identity", would the child adopt what is termed cultural influence from the globally influenced family he resides with regardless?
"Absolutely", said the CEO. "The family know this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as soon as we can', because the price of it is not relevant," he stated.
Impractical
There are some in the education sector who express these concerns.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who provides individual instructors, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
Peter explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the time of seven, and had been raised experiencing and living both cultures. He went on to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that an individual can serve as a embodiment of English culture, an individual who can somehow transplant the characteristics of a British gentleman to a 12-month-old child, appears idealistic and unfeasible," he stated.
"Based on my background, having a quintessentially UK tutor from infancy will not instantly achieve the result they hope for.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and yet I have been lucky enough to enjoy many of the situations they desire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, personal identity cannot be imposed from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and commercialized.
"In my view the fact that the world views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
