"Parents located in North London wants to find an extraordinary and qualified tutor to assist their smallest child on his initial journey to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might readily overlook the wording "beginning" as mere figurative language.
However, it may be the most significant aspect of this unique employment listing, as it seeks to hire a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of applications have already been sent in since the anonymous family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has attracted attention throughout the press, with many questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their search, said that notwithstanding first skepticism, he viewed the concept "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he mentioned they appreciated the atypical nature of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
But, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural bias had by then set in".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", Adam responded. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the older sibling had absorbed "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told Adam they did not want the same situation to recur with their infant.
The strategy: To bring in a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the development at the beginning here is somewhat osmotic," explained the expert.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will pick up the English characteristics they want to impart.
The consultant noted the tutor had to be somebody who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed Adam the selected educator should ideally also have understanding of or enthusiasm in riding, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Additionally though, he said the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, helping their son grow into a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he adds.
However, despite all this tutelage in "UK identity", might the child pick up what is termed cultural leaning from the international family he is raised by in any case?
"Yes", answered Adam. "The parents realize this could fail, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he said.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the education sector who express similar reservations.
An education leader, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who also offer individual instructors, commented that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
He explained that he had moved from the Far East to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been raised understanding and living two backgrounds. He continued to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that an individual can function as a representation of UK identity, a person who can somehow transplant the attributes of a UK sophisticate upon a infant child, appears optimistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"Based on my background, having a distinctly British tutor from early childhood will does not automatically create the result they desire.
"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and yet I have been lucky enough to experience numerous of the experiences they hope for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, self-identity should not be imposed from the outside; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, English culture is something Adam hopes can be instructed – and marketed.
"In my view the reality that the international society holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
