"A household located in North London wants to find an exceptional and skilled tutor to guide their most junior child on his initial journey to becoming an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this advertisement, you might naturally miss the phrase "initial stages" as just figurative language.
But, it could be the most important part of this unique position posting, as it aims to recruit a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have already been submitted since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the post has received interest in the news, with several questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their search, stated that in spite of initial scepticism, he found the concept "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he said they appreciated the unusual aspect of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
However, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already set in".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam responded. "How you eat, how you speak".
He stated the firstborn had picked up "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family told the consultant they hoped to prevent history to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Osmotic Learning
"A lot of the education at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they aim to impart.
Adam said the tutor had to be someone who studied at "the right kinds of schools – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told Adam the successful candidate should ideally also have understanding of or interest in riding, skiing, creative fields and musical activities so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son become a "British gentleman" will result in achievement and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he comments.
However, in spite of all this tutelage in "UK identity", would the child pick up what is termed cultural influence from the multicultural family he is raised by anyway?
"Yes", replied the CEO. "They realize this may not work, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the private teaching field who express these reservations.
Another CEO, chief executive of Blue Education, who also offer private tutors, wrote that "the journey of embracing two identities, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
The expert noted that he had moved from China to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been educated knowing and embodying two backgrounds. He went on to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that an individual can function as a embodiment of UK identity, a person who can somehow transplant the qualities of a English gentleman onto a one-year-old child, seems to me idealistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, having a distinctly British tutor from babyhood will not necessarily achieve the outcome they hope for.
"I never had such a tutor, and however I have been fortunate enough to enjoy numerous of the situations they hope for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, personal identity should not be forced from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Of course, English culture is something the expert hopes can be educated – and commercialized.
"In my view the situation that the global community regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
