"A family based in North London wants to find an extraordinary and skilled educator to support their smallest child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this listing, you might readily overlook the term "initial stages" as mere a turn of phrase.
However, it may be the most significant part of this unique employment listing, as it attempts to find a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of applications have now been received since the anonymous family posted their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has attracted attention in the news, with many wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is supporting the family in their hunt, said that despite first scepticism, he viewed the plan "visionary", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he noted they appreciated the atypical nature of their request, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
What precisely does the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert responded. "How you eat, how you speak".
He stated the firstborn had picked up "extremely delicate, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to the consultant they hoped to prevent this pattern to recur with their younger child.
The intention: To bring in a British tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A lot of the learning at the outset here is somewhat osmotic," explained Adam.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they aim to impart.
The consultant explained the tutor needed to be an individual who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Money No Object
The family informed Adam the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to shape the child in a diverse set of interests.
Additionally though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son grow into a "English gentleman" will result in success and create opportunities.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he comments.
However, notwithstanding all this instruction in "UK identity", might the child absorb so-called cultural bias from the international family he is raised by regardless?
"Absolutely", answered he. "They understand this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'let's give it a go and we'll proceed as soon as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Impractical
There are some in the private teaching field who have these doubts.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who provides individual instructors, wrote that "the process of embracing two identities, or indeed, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
Peter explained that he had relocated from China to the Britain at the age of 7 years old, and had been raised experiencing and living two backgrounds. He continued to learn at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can act as a living vessel of UK identity, an individual who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a British gentleman onto a one-year-old child, appears optimistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"Based on my background, having a distinctly UK tutor from infancy will does not necessarily produce the outcome they want.
"I did not have such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to enjoy numerous of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, cultural identity cannot be imposed from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, UK identity is something Adam hopes can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the reality that the world regards us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
