"A household based in North London wants to find an exceptional and qualified tutor to assist their most junior child on his initial journey to turning into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might readily overlook the term "beginning" as just a turn of phrase.
However, it may be the most significant part of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to recruit a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of responses have since been submitted since the unnamed family published their search for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the post has received interest in the news, with many asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their search, said that despite early skepticism, he viewed the idea "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical aspect of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already taken hold".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the elder child had picked up "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family informed him they wished to avoid history to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To hire a UK tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the development at the start here is rather acquired indirectly," said the expert.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are hoping the child will acquire the English characteristics they want to cultivate.
Adam explained the tutor must be somebody who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories 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.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed him the successful candidate should ideally also have understanding of or interest in riding, skiing, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a wide range of hobbies.
Additionally though, he said the family desired the tutor to register the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son become a "UK sophisticate" will lead to success and provide access.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.
But, in spite of all this instruction in "Britishness", would the child absorb what is termed cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with in any case?
"Absolutely", replied Adam. "The family understand this may not work, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the private teaching field who share similar reservations.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
He wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been raised experiencing and practicing two backgrounds. He progressed to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that a single person can act as a representation of UK identity, an individual who can somehow impart the attributes of a British gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unrealistic," he commented.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially English tutor from infancy will not necessarily create the result they desire.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and yet I have been lucky enough to experience numerous of the situations they desire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, cultural identity cannot be dictated from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, UK identity is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and marketed.
"In my view the reality that the global community holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
