"A family based in North London wants to find an remarkable and skilled educator to support their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might easily overlook the wording "first-steps" as simple a turn of phrase.
Yet, it could be the crucial aspect of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of applications have since been received since the unidentified family advertised their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted interest across the media, with many wondering why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their hunt, explained that notwithstanding early skepticism, he found the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he said they understood the unusual aspect of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
However, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had by then taken hold".
What exactly did the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", the expert responded. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the firstborn had adopted "extremely delicate, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family informed him they hoped to prevent history to happen again with their new baby.
The intention: To engage a British tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from day one.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the learning at the start here is rather absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will adopt the UK customs they aim to impart.
He explained the tutor needed to be an individual who studied at "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have understanding of or passion in riding, winter sports, creative fields and musical activities so as to inspire the child in a wide range of passions.
Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a selection of lessons 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, assisting their son become a "UK sophisticate" will bring about accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he comments.
However, despite all this instruction in "Britishness", would the child adopt what is termed cultural bias from the international family he is raised by in any case?
"Absolutely", replied he. "The family know this may not work, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he said.
Impractical
Several in the tutoring industry who have similar reservations.
An education leader, head and founder of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, stated that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from China to the United Kingdom at the period of childhood, and had been educated knowing and embodying dual heritages. He went on to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The notion that one individual can act as a representation of Britishness, someone who can in some way impart the qualities of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, seems to me idealistic and impractical," he stated.
"From my perspective, having a quintessentially British tutor from babyhood will will not automatically achieve the result they desire.
"I never had such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to experience numerous of the situations they desire for their son."
He added: "The reality is, cultural identity can not be imposed from the outside; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something Adam thinks can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the reality that the world views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
