"A household based in North London seeks an extraordinary and experienced tutor to guide their most junior child on his first steps to turning into an British gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily miss the phrase "beginning" as mere a turn of phrase.
However, it may be the most significant aspect of this unusual employment listing, as it aims to find a teacher for a one-year-old.
Many of submissions have now been submitted since the anonymous family posted their request for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the post has attracted notice in the press, with many questioning why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that in spite of initial skepticism, he found the idea "visionary", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they appreciated the unusual character of their request, and how immature their son is.
Nevertheless, they stated that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already become established".
But what does the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He said the older sibling had adopted "really subtle, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family informed him they wished to avoid the same situation to repeat itself with their new baby.
The plan: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the development at the beginning here is rather absorbed naturally," said Adam.
It's via this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will pick up the British traits they aim to instil.
He said the tutor had to be an individual who attended "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor must be the suitable individual, they'll be performing 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 understanding of or passion in equestrian activities, winter sports, creative fields and music so as to inspire the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he said the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son develop into a "British gentleman" will bring about achievement and create opportunities.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's certainly a status symbol," he comments.
Yet, in spite of all this instruction in "UK identity", could the child pick up what is termed cultural leaning from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "They know 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 expense of it is not relevant," he explained.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the private teaching field who share these reservations.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who provides individual instructors, commented that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert noted that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been raised understanding and practicing two backgrounds. He progressed to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that an individual can serve as a representation of Britishness, a person who can somehow transfer the characteristics of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, seems to me naive and unrealistic," he stated.
"Based on my background, employing a quintessentially UK tutor from early childhood will not necessarily produce the outcome they want.
"I did not have such a figure, and however I have been privileged enough to experience numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, self-identity should not be imposed from the outside influences; it must be embraced, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Naturally, Britishness is something Adam believes can be educated – and commercialized.
"I believe the reality that the world views us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
