"A household based in North London seeks an extraordinary and skilled educator to guide their youngest child on his first steps to turning into an British gentleman."
Upon seeing this listing, you might easily miss the term "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
But, it might be the most important aspect of this distinctive job advert, as it attempts to hire a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of applications have since been sent in since the anonymous family published their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has received interest throughout the media, with numerous questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their search, stated that notwithstanding early doubt, he viewed the plan "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he spoke with the family, he said they understood the unconventional aspect of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had by then set in".
But what does the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", he answered. "How you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the firstborn had picked up "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family told him they wished to avoid this pattern to repeat itself with their infant.
The strategy: To hire a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the learning at the beginning here is somewhat acquired indirectly," said the CEO.
It's via this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the UK customs they wish to cultivate.
Adam said the tutor had to be someone who attended "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Money No Object
The family told the expert the selected educator should preferably also have knowledge of or passion in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and instrumental training so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
More than that though, he said the family desired the tutor to sign up the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son grow into a "UK sophisticate" will lead to achievement and provide access.
"Considering the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.
Yet, notwithstanding all this guidance in "UK identity", could the child absorb so-called cultural bias from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?
"Certainly", said he. "They know this could fail, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he explained.
Impractical
A number of in the tutoring industry who have those reservations.
Another CEO, head and founder of Blue Education, who also offer personal educators, wrote that "the development of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
The expert explained that he had moved from China to the Britain at the time of 7 years old, and had been raised knowing and living two backgrounds. He progressed to study at Cambridge University.
"The notion that one individual can function as a embodiment of UK identity, an individual who can in some way transfer the attributes of a English gentleman onto a one-year-old child, seems to me idealistic and impractical," he wrote.
"In my experience, having a distinctly British tutor from early childhood will does not automatically achieve the outcome they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and yet I have been lucky enough to live numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He stated: "The truth is, cultural identity can not be forced from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."
Purchasing UK Culture
Of course, English culture is something the CEO hopes can be instructed – and sold.
"I believe the situation that the global community regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating