"Parents located in North London seeks an extraordinary and qualified instructor to support their smallest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might easily miss the phrase "first-steps" as simple a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the crucial part of this unique employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of submissions have since been sent in since the unidentified family advertised their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the listing has attracted notice throughout the press, with many questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their search, stated that despite early scepticism, he found the plan "visionary", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they understood the atypical aspect of their demand, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained 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 age "cultural influence had by then become established".
What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the firstborn had absorbed "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent history to happen again with their younger child.
The plan: To hire a English tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the development at the beginning here is rather absorbed naturally," said Adam.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will acquire the UK customs they aim to impart.
He said the tutor had to be someone who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to the expert the chosen tutor should preferably also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to influence the child in a wide range of passions.
More than that though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he notes.
Yet, notwithstanding all this guidance in "Britishness", could the child pick up what is termed cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with regardless?
"Absolutely", said he. "The parents realize this might not succeed, but they've just taken the view of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as soon as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the education sector who have those reservations.
Peter Cui, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies private tutors, stated that "the process of becoming bicultural, or in fact, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
Peter explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the UK at the period of childhood, and had been educated knowing and practicing both cultures. He went on to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can function as a representation of Britishness, someone who can somehow transfer the characteristics of a UK sophisticate upon a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he stated.
"In my experience, having a quintessentially English tutor from early childhood will does not necessarily produce the outcome they want.
"I did not have such a tutor, and however I have been lucky enough to experience several of the experiences they desire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, personal identity cannot be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, English culture is something the expert hopes can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the reality that the international society views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
