"A household residing in North London is looking for an exceptional and skilled tutor to support their smallest child on his initial journey to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might readily miss the term "initial stages" as simple figurative language.
Yet, it may be the most important element of this distinctive job advert, as it attempts to hire a mentor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of applications have now been submitted since the anonymous family posted their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the advert has attracted attention across the press, with many questioning why?
Innovative Idea
Adam Caller, chief executive of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that despite early scepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he said they recognized the unconventional character of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural influence had by then taken hold".
What exactly did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam responded. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the firstborn had picked up "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family told Adam they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their new baby.
The strategy: To engage a British tutor, who should speak with RP, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the education at the start here is rather acquired indirectly," said Adam.
It's via this subtle influence that the family are hoping the child will adopt the British traits they want to instil.
Adam noted the tutor must be someone who went to "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he commented.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told him the chosen tutor should preferably also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in horse riding, winter sports, the arts and music so as to shape the child in a wide range of passions.
More than that though, he said the family hoped the tutor to register 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, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will lead to achievement and create opportunities.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he notes.
Yet, despite all this tutelage in "UK identity", might the child pick up so-called cultural influence from the international family he is raised by anyway?
"Absolutely", replied he. "The parents realize this may not work, 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 expense of it is not a concern," he said.
Overly Optimistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who share these doubts.
An education leader, head and founder of Blue Education, who supplies private tutors, wrote that "the development of embracing two identities, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert noted that he had moved from the Far East to the Britain at the period of 7 years old, and had been educated knowing and practicing dual heritages. He continued to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that an individual can act as a representation of UK identity, an individual who can somehow transfer the qualities of a UK sophisticate to a one-year-old child, strikes me as idealistic and impractical," he wrote.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially UK tutor from babyhood will not instantly achieve the outcome they hope for.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been fortunate enough to experience many of the situations they aspire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, cultural identity should not be dictated from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, English culture is something the CEO believes can be educated – and marketed.
"In my view the reality that the global community regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
