"Parents based in North London seeks an exceptional and experienced educator to guide their smallest child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might naturally skip the phrase "first-steps" as just an expression.
Yet, it might be the crucial part of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Many of submissions have now been sent in since the unidentified family posted their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted attention across the press, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that despite first doubt, he considered the idea "visionary", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they appreciated the unusual nature of their request, and how early in age their son is.
But, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had by then become established".
What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", the expert responded. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had absorbed "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to the consultant they hoped to prevent history to happen again with their infant.
The strategy: To bring in a UK tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the learning at the beginning here is kind of osmotic," said Adam.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the British traits they aim to impart.
Adam noted the tutor must be somebody who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to the expert the successful candidate should preferably also have understanding of or enthusiasm in horse riding, winter sports, the arts and musical activities so as to inspire the child in a wide range of interests.
More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son grow into a "English gentleman" will lead to accomplishment and provide access.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he notes.
But, notwithstanding all this instruction in "English culture", would the child absorb so-called cultural influence from the globally influenced family he resides with in any case?
"Yes", replied the CEO. "They realize this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as early as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who share similar concerns.
Another CEO, chief executive of a tutoring service, who provides individual instructors, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
The expert explained that he had relocated from China to the United Kingdom at the age of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and living both cultures. He progressed to study at Cambridge University.
"The concept that one individual can serve as a representation of Britishness, an individual who can in some way transfer the characteristics of a English gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, appears optimistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, employing a quintessentially UK tutor from babyhood will will not instantly achieve the goal they want.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and however I have been privileged enough to enjoy numerous of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, cultural identity should not be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, English culture is something the CEO hopes can be educated – and marketed.
"I think the reality that the international society regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
