"A household located in the northern part of London wants to find an extraordinary and experienced educator to guide their smallest child on his initial journey to becoming an British gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might naturally miss the phrase "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
Yet, it may be the most important part of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to recruit a mentor for a infant.
Many of submissions have now been received since the unnamed family posted their call for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has received notice in the news, with many questioning why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their quest, said that despite early skepticism, he considered the idea "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical nature of their demand, and how young their son is.
However, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already become established".
What precisely does the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", he answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the older sibling had adopted "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family told him they hoped to prevent the same situation to happen again with their new baby.
The plan: To bring in a English tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from day one.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the education at the outset here is somewhat absorbed naturally," explained Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will adopt the UK customs they want to instil.
Adam explained the tutor needed to be someone who studied at "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told him the selected educator should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in equestrian activities, skiing, the arts and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and create opportunities.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a status symbol," he adds.
However, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "Britishness", would the child absorb alleged cultural bias from the international family he resides with regardless?
"Absolutely", answered Adam. "The parents know this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he stated.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the education sector who have similar reservations.
An education leader, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, wrote that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
The expert explained that he had moved from China to the UK at the time of childhood, and had been educated knowing and embodying dual heritages. He went on to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that one individual can act as a representation of Britishness, someone who can possibly impart the characteristics of a UK sophisticate to a infant child, seems to me naive and impractical," he stated.
"In my experience, having a distinctly English tutor from early childhood will does not automatically produce the result they want.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and however I have been fortunate enough to experience many of the situations they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, cultural identity can not be imposed from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Buying Britishness
Certainly, English culture is something the expert hopes can be educated – and commercialized.
"I think the fact that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
