"Parents residing in the northern part of London seeks an remarkable and skilled instructor to support their smallest child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might easily overlook the phrase "initial stages" as mere a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the crucial aspect of this distinctive job advert, as it attempts to hire a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Many of responses have since been submitted since the anonymous family posted their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the listing has received notice in the news, with numerous questioning why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, head and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that notwithstanding first skepticism, he considered the idea "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they understood the unconventional character of their demand, and how early in age their son is.
But, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already become established".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", the expert replied. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the elder child had absorbed "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family informed the consultant they did not want the same situation to repeat itself with their infant.
The strategy: To engage a English tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the development at the beginning here is kind of osmotic," stated Adam.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are hoping the child will acquire the UK customs they want to cultivate.
The consultant explained the tutor had to be an individual who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family plan 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, effortlessly," he added.
Money No Object
The family told the expert the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in riding, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to inspire the child in a diverse set 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 "pony-riding and learning an tool by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son develop into a "English gentleman" will bring about success and provide access.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he comments.
But, notwithstanding all this instruction in "UK identity", would the child adopt what is termed cultural influence from the globally influenced family he lives with anyway?
"Absolutely", said he. "The parents know this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the attitude of, 'we should try and we should start as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he explained.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the tutoring industry who share these doubts.
Another CEO, chief executive of an educational organization, who provides individual instructors, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had moved from Asia to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been brought up experiencing and living both cultures. He progressed to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can function as a representation of English culture, an individual who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a UK sophisticate onto a one-year-old child, strikes me as naive and unrealistic," he stated.
"In my experience, having a typically UK tutor from early childhood will not automatically produce the outcome they want.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been privileged enough to enjoy many of the situations they desire for their son."
He added: "The fact is, cultural identity can not be dictated from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, Britishness is something the expert hopes can be taught – and commercialized.
"I think the fact that the world holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
