"A family residing in north London seeks an remarkable and skilled educator to support their most junior child on his first steps to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might easily miss the phrase "first-steps" as simple an expression.
Yet, it may be the crucial aspect of this distinctive job advert, as it aims to hire a mentor for a infant.
Many of submissions have since been received since the anonymous family advertised their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the post has gained notice throughout the media, with several asking why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, head and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their hunt, explained that notwithstanding initial skepticism, he found the plan "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he mentioned they appreciated the unusual aspect of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural bias had already set in".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family informed the consultant they wished to avoid the same situation to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To hire a English tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the development at the start here is rather absorbed naturally," stated the CEO.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will acquire the British traits they wish to instil.
The consultant said the tutor needed to be someone who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told Adam the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to influence the child in a wide range of interests.
More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son develop into a "English gentleman" will lead to success and open doors.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he adds.
However, despite all this guidance in "Britishness", could the child adopt so-called cultural leaning from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", replied Adam. "The family realize this could fail, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who have those reservations.
Another CEO, head and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer private tutors, wrote that "the process of embracing two identities, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
Peter wrote that he had relocated from China to the UK at the age of seven, and had been educated knowing and embodying two backgrounds. He went on to learn at Cambridge University.
"The idea that one individual can serve as a living vessel of English culture, someone who can somehow transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate onto a one-year-old child, appears naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"In my experience, having a typically UK tutor from early childhood will not instantly achieve the result they desire.
"I did not have such a tutor, and however I have been fortunate enough to enjoy several of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, personal identity can not be imposed from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the CEO believes can be educated – and commercialized.
"I believe the situation that the international society regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
