"A family located in North London seeks an extraordinary and skilled tutor to support their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily skip the term "beginning" as mere a turn of phrase.
However, it could be the crucial element of this unique job advert, as it attempts to hire a teacher for a one-year-old.
Numerous of applications have now been sent in since the unidentified family published their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted attention in the press, with several questioning why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their hunt, stated that notwithstanding first skepticism, he considered the plan "visionary", and "progressive".
When he spoke with the family, he said they understood the unconventional nature of their demand, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they explained that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had already become established".
What precisely does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", he responded. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the firstborn had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family informed him they did not want the same situation to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a British tutor, who must speak with RP, to influence the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is rather absorbed naturally," stated Adam.
It's through this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will pick up the British traits they wish to impart.
Adam explained the tutor had to be someone who attended "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they may not realize they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Money No Object
The family explained to Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or enthusiasm in horse riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and music so as to inspire the child in a wide range of interests.
Furthermore though, he explained the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a range of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son grow into a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and provide access.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he notes.
But, in spite of all this tutelage in "UK identity", would the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the international family he is raised by regardless?
"Certainly", replied he. "The parents know this could fail, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as soon as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he said.
Impractical
There are some in the tutoring industry who have those doubts.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of a tutoring service, who also offer private tutors, commented that "the journey of embracing two identities, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
He wrote that he had emigrated from China to the UK at the age of seven, and had been raised knowing and living dual heritages. He progressed to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that a single person can function as a embodiment of UK identity, a person who can possibly impart the characteristics of a English gentleman to a infant child, seems to me naive and impractical," he stated.
"In my experience, having a quintessentially UK tutor from infancy will not automatically produce the result they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to experience numerous of the situations they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, cultural identity can not be dictated from the outside; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, UK identity is something Adam thinks can be taught – and marketed.
"I believe the situation that the world holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
