"A household located in the northern part of London is looking for an remarkable and experienced tutor to guide their smallest child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might easily skip the wording "first-steps" as just a turn of phrase.
But, it might be the most significant aspect of this unique employment listing, as it attempts to recruit a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of submissions have now been received since the unnamed family published their call for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has attracted interest throughout the press, with several asking why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, head and founder of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their search, said that in spite of initial scepticism, he considered the concept "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he said they understood the atypical character of their requirement, and how young their son is.
But, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had waited until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural influence had by then set in".
But what did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", the expert answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the firstborn had adopted "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told him they hoped to prevent history to happen again with their younger child.
The plan: To engage a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the learning at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the UK customs they want to instil.
Adam noted the tutor must be an individual who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed him the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to inspire the child in a wide range of passions.
Furthermore though, he explained the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a range of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son become a "English gentleman" will lead to achievement and create opportunities.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he comments.
However, in spite of all this tutelage in "English culture", might the child pick up so-called cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with regardless?
"Yes", said he. "They understand this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the private teaching field who share those doubts.
An education leader, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who provides personal educators, wrote that "the process of becoming bicultural, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
The expert noted that he had moved from Asia to the United Kingdom at the age of childhood, and had been raised knowing and practicing two backgrounds. He progressed to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that an individual can serve as a living vessel of Britishness, a person who can somehow transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, strikes me as idealistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, employing a quintessentially UK tutor from infancy will will not necessarily achieve the result they want.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to live many of the situations they hope for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, cultural identity should not be dictated from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, Britishness is something the expert thinks can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I believe the fact that the world holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
