"A household residing in North London seeks an exceptional and skilled tutor to assist their smallest child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily overlook the wording "initial stages" as mere a turn of phrase.
However, it might be the crucial element of this unique position posting, as it aims to hire a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have since been sent in since the unnamed family advertised their search for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has received interest in the news, with numerous asking why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their hunt, said that notwithstanding initial doubt, he viewed the plan "visionary", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he said they understood the atypical nature of their demand, and how immature their son is.
But, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already set in".
But what does the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the elder child had picked up "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family told him they did not want history to repeat itself with their new baby.
The intention: To hire a UK tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the learning at the start here is somewhat osmotic," said the CEO.
It's via this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will pick up the UK customs they want to instil.
The consultant explained the tutor had to be somebody who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to the expert the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in horse riding, skiing, the arts and music so as to influence the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and learning 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 result in achievement and open doors.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this guidance in "Britishness", could the child absorb what is termed cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", said Adam. "They realize 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 irrelevant," he explained.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the tutoring industry who share these reservations.
An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, wrote that "the process of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not designed."
He noted that he had relocated from Asia to the Britain at the period of seven, and had been raised knowing and practicing dual heritages. He continued to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that a single person can function as a representation of English culture, a person who can possibly transplant the qualities of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, appears naive and unfeasible," he commented.
"In my experience, having a typically UK tutor from infancy will not automatically achieve the goal they desire.
"I never had such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to experience several of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, self-identity should not be forced from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, English culture is something the CEO hopes can be instructed – and sold.
"I think the fact that the global community regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
