"A household based in north London wants to find an remarkable and skilled tutor to guide their most junior child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might easily skip the wording "initial stages" as simple figurative language.
Yet, it may be the most significant part of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to find a mentor for a one-year-old.
Many of responses have now been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their search for the highly paid tutor, who must be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has attracted notice in the press, with several questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their quest, said that despite early skepticism, he considered the concept "visionary", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he noted they recognized the atypical aspect of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert replied. "How you eat, how you speak".
He said the firstborn had picked up "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family informed him they did not want the same situation to recur with their new baby.
The plan: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the development at the beginning here is kind of osmotic," explained the expert.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will adopt the British traits they aim to impart.
Adam explained the tutor needed to be somebody who went to "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed Adam the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in horse riding, alpine skiing, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a wide range of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son become a "UK sophisticate" will lead to accomplishment and provide access.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he notes.
However, notwithstanding all this guidance in "English culture", might the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the international family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", answered the CEO. "The family understand this might not succeed, but they've just taken the view of, 'let's give it a go and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he said.
Impractical
A number of in the tutoring industry who express these concerns.
An education leader, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who also offer private tutors, commented that "the journey of embracing two identities, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from Asia to the UK at the time of childhood, and had been educated understanding and practicing dual heritages. He progressed to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that a single person can function as a representation of UK identity, someone who can possibly transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman to a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, engaging a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will will not necessarily achieve the outcome they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to experience many of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, self-identity should not be imposed from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, English culture is something the CEO thinks can be educated – and sold.
"I think the fact that the global community holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating