"A family based in North London wants to find an remarkable and qualified instructor to assist their youngest child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might readily skip the phrase "initial stages" as just figurative language.
However, it may be the most significant aspect of this unique job advert, as it attempts to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of applications have now been submitted since the anonymous family published their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has received attention in the press, with several asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their hunt, explained that despite initial scepticism, he viewed the concept "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he said they appreciated the unconventional character of their request, and how young their son is.
But, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already taken hold".
But what does the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", he answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He stated the firstborn had adopted "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family informed him they hoped to prevent history to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To hire a UK tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the education at the start here is kind of osmotic," said the expert.
It's via this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they aim to impart.
Adam explained the tutor must be somebody who went to "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Money No Object
The family informed him the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in riding, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and provide access.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he comments.
Yet, despite all this guidance in "UK identity", would the child adopt alleged cultural bias from the international family he is raised by regardless?
"Absolutely", answered the CEO. "They know this may not work, 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 cost of it is irrelevant," he stated.
Impractical
Several in the tutoring industry who express those doubts.
Peter Cui, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the development of becoming bicultural, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
The expert wrote that he had emigrated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the period of childhood, and had been educated experiencing and practicing two backgrounds. He continued to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that an individual can function as a living vessel of English culture, a person who can somehow transfer the characteristics of a English gentleman onto a one-year-old child, seems to me idealistic and unrealistic," he commented.
"In my experience, having a distinctly English tutor from babyhood will will not necessarily produce the result they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the experiences they hope for their son."
He added: "The reality is, personal identity should not be imposed from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, UK identity is something the expert believes can be educated – and commercialized.
"I believe the reality that the global community views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
