"A family located in north London is looking for an extraordinary and experienced instructor to assist their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might readily overlook the phrase "first-steps" as just figurative language.
Yet, it may be the most significant aspect of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to recruit a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Many of submissions have now been received since the unnamed 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 received notice in the news, with numerous questioning why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, head and founder of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their quest, explained that in spite of early skepticism, he considered the idea "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he consulted the family, he noted they appreciated the unusual character of their demand, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated 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 precisely did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", he answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He stated the older sibling had picked up "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they wished to avoid the same situation to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To hire a British tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the development at the outset here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's through this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will adopt the British traits they want to instil.
He said the tutor needed to be an individual who attended "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator must be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he said.
Money No Object
The family told Adam the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, winter sports, the arts and music so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a range of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about success and open doors.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he notes.
Yet, in spite of all this tutelage in "English culture", would the child pick up alleged cultural influence from the international family he resides with anyway?
"Certainly", replied the CEO. "They know this could fail, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he explained.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who express similar doubts.
Another CEO, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who provides private tutors, wrote that "the journey of embracing two identities, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the time of childhood, and had been brought up understanding and living two backgrounds. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that a single person can act as a representation of English culture, an individual who can somehow transplant the attributes of a English gentleman to a infant child, strikes me as idealistic and unfeasible," he stated.
"In my experience, employing a typically UK tutor from infancy will does not instantly achieve the goal they desire.
"I did not have such a figure, and however I have been fortunate enough to enjoy numerous of the situations they hope for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, personal identity cannot be dictated from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Of course, UK identity is something the CEO hopes can be instructed – and sold.
"In my view the situation that the world holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
