"Parents residing in North London wants to find an exceptional and skilled instructor to guide their smallest child on his initial journey to growing into an English gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might easily miss the wording "initial stages" as just an expression.
But, it might be the most significant element of this unique position posting, as it attempts to find a mentor for a infant.
Numerous of submissions have already been received since the unnamed family published their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the listing has attracted attention throughout the news, with numerous questioning why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their search, explained that in spite of early skepticism, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he noted they understood the unconventional nature of their request, and how early in age their son is.
But, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already become established".
What exactly did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam responded. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He said the older sibling had picked up "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to him they did not want history to happen again with their younger child.
The intention: To hire a UK tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the development at the start here is kind of osmotic," stated Adam.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they wish to impart.
He explained the tutor needed to be someone who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to Adam the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
More than that though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will result in accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he adds.
However, despite all this instruction in "English culture", might the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the multicultural family he resides with regardless?
"Absolutely", answered he. "The family know this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who share those reservations.
Another CEO, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies private tutors, wrote that "the journey of embracing two identities, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
He wrote that he had moved from Asia to the Britain at the time of seven, and had been raised experiencing and living dual heritages. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that a single person can serve as a representation of UK identity, someone who can in some way transfer the characteristics of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, appears naive and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, having a typically UK tutor from babyhood will not instantly create the goal they want.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to live many of the situations they desire for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, cultural identity cannot be forced from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the CEO thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.
"In my view the reality that the global community views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
