"Parents based in the northern part of London is looking for an exceptional and skilled instructor to guide their most junior child on his initial journey to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily skip the wording "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
However, it might be the most important element of this unusual employment listing, as it seeks to find a mentor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of submissions have since been sent in since the unidentified family posted their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
In recent few weeks, the advert has gained notice across the press, with several questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, chief executive of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their search, said that notwithstanding first doubt, he viewed the concept "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual character of their demand, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
What precisely did the family refer to by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", the expert responded. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the older sibling had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family explained to the consultant they hoped to prevent the same situation to repeat itself with their infant.
The intention: To bring in a British tutor, who needs to speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the development at the start here is somewhat absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will pick up the British traits they want to impart.
Adam noted the tutor needed to be someone who went to "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator must be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.
Money No Object
The family informed him the selected educator should preferably also have knowledge of or passion in horse riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to influence the child in a diverse set of interests.
More than that though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a range of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son grow into a "British gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he comments.
But, despite all this instruction in "Britishness", might the child pick up alleged cultural bias from the multicultural family he lives with anyway?
"Certainly", replied Adam. "The family understand this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'we should try and we should start as early as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Impractical
Several in the education sector who express those reservations.
An education leader, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who provides individual instructors, wrote that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
He noted that he had relocated from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the time of childhood, and had been educated knowing and practicing two backgrounds. He continued to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that a single person can serve as a embodiment of Britishness, someone who can somehow transplant the attributes of a English gentleman upon a infant child, appears optimistic and unfeasible," he stated.
"From my perspective, engaging a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will will not instantly produce the outcome they desire.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to live many of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He added: "The reality is, self-identity can not be dictated from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, UK identity is something Adam thinks can be educated – and commercialized.
"In my view the situation that the international society holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
