"Parents based in the northern part of London wants to find an exceptional and experienced tutor to assist their smallest child on his first steps to turning into an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might naturally miss the term "initial stages" as mere figurative language.
Yet, it might be the crucial element of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of applications have now been received since the anonymous family advertised their request for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has received interest in the press, with many asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their search, said that in spite of early skepticism, he found the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he noted they understood the unconventional nature of their demand, and how immature their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already become established".
What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", the expert answered. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had picked up "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family told the consultant they wished to avoid history to repeat itself with their infant.
The strategy: To hire a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the education at the start here is rather absorbed naturally," stated the expert.
It's by means of this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will pick up the British traits they aim to instil.
He noted the tutor must be somebody who attended "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told him the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in horse riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and musical activities so as to shape the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son grow into a "British gentleman" will result in achievement and open doors.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he notes.
But, notwithstanding all this instruction in "Britishness", could the child pick up alleged cultural influence from the globally influenced family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", replied Adam. "The family understand this may not work, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not relevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the education sector who express these concerns.
Another CEO, chief executive of a tutoring service, who also offer individual instructors, commented that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had relocated from Asia to the Britain at the age of 7 years old, and had been brought up understanding and living dual heritages. He went on to study at Cambridge University.
"The notion that one individual can act as a representation of English culture, an individual who can in some way transplant the qualities of a English gentleman onto a 12-month-old child, appears optimistic and impractical," he wrote.
"From my perspective, employing a quintessentially English tutor from early childhood will does not automatically create the result they hope for.
"I did not have such a figure, and yet I have been privileged enough to enjoy many of the situations they hope for their son."
He added: "The truth is, cultural identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, UK identity is something the CEO believes can be instructed – and sold.
"In my view the situation that the world views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
