"A household based in north London wants to find an remarkable and experienced instructor to support their smallest child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
Upon seeing this post, you might naturally miss the wording "beginning" as mere figurative language.
Yet, it may be the crucial element of this unusual employment listing, as it attempts to hire a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of applications have since been submitted since the anonymous family published their search for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the post has received attention across the press, with many asking why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their hunt, said that notwithstanding early skepticism, he viewed the idea "forward-looking", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they recognized the unconventional aspect of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
However, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had already become established".
What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", the expert answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the elder child had absorbed "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to him they hoped to prevent the same situation to repeat itself with their infant.
The plan: To engage a UK tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to guide the baby from day one.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's through this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they want to cultivate.
Adam explained the tutor needed to be somebody who studied at "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told Adam the successful candidate should preferably also have knowledge of or interest in horse riding, skiing, creative fields and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Furthermore though, he said the family desired the tutor to register the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Considering the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he comments.
Yet, despite all this guidance in "English culture", would the child absorb so-called cultural bias from the multicultural family he is raised by in any case?
"Certainly", answered he. "The family realize this could fail, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as soon as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Impractical
There are some in the education sector who share similar concerns.
An education leader, chief executive of Blue Education, who supplies individual instructors, stated that "the journey of adopting dual cultures, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."
The expert explained that he had moved from China to the United Kingdom at the age of childhood, and had been brought up understanding and living both cultures. He went on to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that a single person can serve as a living vessel of English culture, a person who can possibly impart the characteristics of a English gentleman to a infant child, strikes me as naive and unfeasible," he wrote.
"From my perspective, having a quintessentially UK tutor from infancy will does not automatically create the outcome they want.
"I did not have that kind of mentor, and nevertheless I have been lucky enough to enjoy several of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, self-identity should not be forced from the outside; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, UK identity is something the CEO believes can be instructed – and commercialized.
"I think the reality that the global community holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
