"A household located in north London seeks an exceptional and skilled educator to guide their smallest child on his early path to becoming an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily miss the phrase "beginning" as just a turn of phrase.
However, it might be the crucial element of this unusual job advert, as it attempts to hire a mentor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of applications have since been sent in since the unnamed family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the post has attracted interest throughout the press, with many asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their quest, said that notwithstanding initial doubt, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he said they understood the atypical nature of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had by then taken hold".
But what does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family explained to him they wished to avoid the same situation to happen again with their younger child.
The intention: To bring in a British tutor, who needs to speak with RP, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the start here is kind of osmotic," said the CEO.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will pick up the UK customs they want to instil.
Adam said the tutor must be somebody who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family explained to him the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in riding, alpine skiing, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a wide range of hobbies.
Additionally though, he stated the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about accomplishment and provide access.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he notes.
Yet, notwithstanding all this guidance in "Britishness", might the child adopt what is termed cultural influence from the globally influenced family he is raised by regardless?
"Yes", answered he. "They know this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as quickly as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who share similar concerns.
Another CEO, chief executive of Blue Education, who provides private tutors, stated that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
The expert wrote that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the period of 7 years old, and had been brought up knowing and practicing two backgrounds. He went on to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that a single person can serve as a embodiment of UK identity, someone who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a British gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he commented.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially British tutor from babyhood will not instantly achieve the result they desire.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been privileged enough to live many of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, cultural identity should not be forced from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, English culture is something the CEO hopes can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I believe the reality that the international society views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
