"Parents based in north London is looking for an exceptional and experienced tutor to assist their smallest child on his early path to becoming an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might readily overlook the term "beginning" as mere a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the most significant element of this unique position posting, as it attempts to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.
Many of submissions have already been submitted since the unnamed family advertised their request for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has attracted interest across the press, with many questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, head and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their quest, said that despite early scepticism, he found the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they recognized the unusual character of their request, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already set in".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", he responded. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He said the firstborn had adopted "really subtle, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family informed the consultant they hoped to prevent this pattern to recur with their infant.
The plan: To hire a English tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the learning at the start here is somewhat acquired indirectly," said the expert.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are aiming the child will adopt the British traits they wish to cultivate.
The consultant explained the tutor needed to be someone who studied at "the right kinds of schools – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the suitable individual, 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 interest in riding, winter sports, the arts and musical activities so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Additionally though, he said the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son become a "English gentleman" will result in success and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he notes.
But, notwithstanding all this instruction in "UK identity", would the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the international family he resides with regardless?
"Certainly", answered he. "The parents know this may not work, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'let's give it a go and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who express those reservations.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, wrote that "the development of embracing two identities, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
He explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and living both cultures. He progressed to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that an individual can act as a embodiment of UK identity, someone who can somehow transplant the qualities of a British gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, seems to me naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"From my perspective, having a distinctly UK tutor from babyhood will will not necessarily produce the outcome they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to experience several of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, cultural identity should not be forced from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the expert believes can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the reality that the world views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
