"A family based in the northern part of London is looking for an extraordinary and skilled tutor to support their smallest child on his initial journey to becoming an English gentleman."
Looking at this listing, you might easily miss the phrase "beginning" as simple an expression.
Yet, it might be the most significant part of this unique job advert, as it seeks to hire a mentor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of applications have since been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has received notice across the news, with several asking why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their quest, said that in spite of first skepticism, he considered the concept "visionary", and "progressive".
When he met the family, he noted they recognized the unconventional character of their requirement, and how early in age their son is.
However, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already become established".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", he replied. "The manner you eat, how you speak".
He explained the elder child had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they hoped to prevent this pattern to repeat itself with their infant.
The strategy: To hire a English tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is somewhat osmotic," said Adam.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the English characteristics they aim to impart.
He explained the tutor needed to be an individual who attended "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Cost Not Relevant
The family explained to Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in equestrian activities, skiing, creative fields and music so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
Furthermore though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "equestrian training and starting an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son develop into a "British gentleman" will lead to success and create opportunities.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he notes.
Yet, despite all this guidance in "English culture", would the child absorb what is termed cultural leaning from the international family he lives with in any case?
"Yes", answered Adam. "The parents understand this might not succeed, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'we should try and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the education sector who express those concerns.
Another CEO, chief executive of Blue Education, who also offer personal educators, wrote that "the development of adopting dual cultures, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."
Peter explained that he had emigrated from China to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been raised experiencing and embodying two backgrounds. He continued to be educated at the University of Cambridge.
"The concept that an individual can act as a embodiment of UK identity, a person who can somehow transfer the characteristics of a British gentleman upon a 12-month-old child, appears naive and unrealistic," he wrote.
"In my experience, engaging a quintessentially British tutor from infancy will will not necessarily create the goal they desire.
"I never had such a figure, and yet I have been privileged enough to experience many of the situations they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The reality is, cultural identity should not be imposed from the outside influences; it must be selected, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, English culture is something the expert thinks can be educated – and marketed.
"In my view the reality that the world views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
