"A family based in the northern part of London seeks an exceptional and skilled tutor to support their most junior child on his early path to turning into an British gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might easily miss the wording "beginning" as just an expression.
But, it may be the crucial aspect of this unusual job advert, as it aims to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of applications have now been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their request for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the listing has attracted notice across the news, with several questioning why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their search, said that notwithstanding early skepticism, he found the concept "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he said they understood the unusual character of their demand, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural bias had already become established".
But what did the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He said the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family told Adam they did not want this pattern to happen again with their infant.
The intention: To engage a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"A great deal of the education at the beginning here is rather absorbed naturally," said Adam.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they wish to instil.
Adam said the tutor needed to be an individual who studied at "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Money No Object
The family explained to him the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in horse riding, alpine skiing, the arts and musical activities so as to influence the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
More than that though, he stated the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and starting an instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son become a "English gentleman" will result in achievement and provide access.
"Taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he comments.
However, despite all this guidance in "English culture", could the child absorb so-called cultural influence from the international family he resides with anyway?
"Absolutely", said Adam. "The parents realize this might not succeed, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as early as we can', because the expense of it is not a concern," he stated.
Impractical
Several in the education sector who share these doubts.
Another CEO, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the process of becoming bicultural, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been raised knowing and practicing dual heritages. He went on to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that a single person can serve as a representation of English culture, an individual who can in some way transplant the characteristics of a English gentleman upon a one-year-old child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, engaging a quintessentially English tutor from early childhood will will not instantly achieve the goal they hope for.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and yet I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the situations they desire for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, cultural identity cannot be imposed from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Naturally, English culture is something the CEO believes can be educated – and sold.
"I think the reality that the international society regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
