"A household located in North London wants to find an exceptional and experienced tutor to support their smallest child on his first steps to turning into an English gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might naturally overlook the phrase "first-steps" as just a turn of phrase.
However, it may be the most important aspect of this distinctive job advert, as it attempts to recruit a teacher for a one-year-old.
Numerous of responses have already been sent in since the anonymous family advertised their search for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has attracted attention across the news, with numerous questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, chief executive of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that in spite of early doubt, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they understood the unconventional aspect of their demand, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had by then become established".
What precisely did the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He said the elder child had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family explained to Adam they wished to avoid history to happen again with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a British tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the development at the outset here is kind of absorbed naturally," said the expert.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will acquire the English characteristics they aim to cultivate.
The consultant said the tutor must be somebody who studied at "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to the expert the successful candidate should ideally also have understanding of or interest in horse riding, alpine skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an tool by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son grow into a "British gentleman" will bring about success and provide access.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he adds.
Yet, in spite of all this instruction in "English culture", would the child adopt alleged cultural influence from the globally influenced family he resides with regardless?
"Certainly", replied the CEO. "They realize this could fail, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the tutoring industry who have these reservations.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer private tutors, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
Peter wrote that he had relocated from China to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been raised experiencing and living two backgrounds. He went on to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that a single person can act as a embodiment of English culture, an individual who can possibly impart the qualities of a British gentleman upon a infant child, seems to me idealistic and impractical," he wrote.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially English tutor from babyhood will not necessarily create the outcome they want.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to experience many of the experiences they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, personal identity should not be imposed from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, UK identity is something the expert hopes can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the reality that the world views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
