"A household residing in the northern part of London is looking for an remarkable and qualified educator to guide their smallest child on his initial journey to turning into an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might readily skip the phrase "first-steps" as mere a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the most important element of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.
Many of applications have now been received since the unnamed family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has attracted attention throughout the media, with numerous asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their hunt, stated that despite early scepticism, he considered the concept "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he said they understood the atypical nature of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural bias had by then become established".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", he replied. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He said the elder child had adopted "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family informed the consultant they did not want history to repeat itself with their new baby.
The strategy: To bring in a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the development at the outset here is somewhat acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's via this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will acquire the British traits they aim to impart.
Adam noted the tutor needed to be an individual who studied at "the right kinds of schools – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Money No Object
The family told Adam the successful candidate should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, winter sports, creative fields and musical activities so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son become a "English gentleman" will lead to success and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.
However, in spite of all this tutelage in "Britishness", could the child absorb what is termed cultural leaning from the international family he is raised by anyway?
"Certainly", said Adam. "The family understand this may not work, but they've simply adopted the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and let's go as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he said.
Impractical
Several in the private teaching field who have those doubts.
Another CEO, chief executive of a tutoring service, who supplies private tutors, commented that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
Peter noted that he had emigrated from Asia to the Britain at the period of 7 years old, and had been raised knowing and living dual heritages. He went on to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that an individual can act as a living vessel of English culture, an individual who can somehow transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate onto a infant child, strikes me as optimistic and impractical," he commented.
"From my perspective, employing a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will does not automatically create the outcome they hope for.
"I never had such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to enjoy numerous of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, personal identity should not be dictated from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, English culture is something Adam hopes can be taught – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the world views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
