"A household based in north London is looking for an extraordinary and skilled tutor to guide their youngest child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might easily skip the wording "beginning" as simple figurative language.
However, it may be the most significant part of this distinctive position posting, as it attempts to find a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have already been submitted since the unnamed family posted their call for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the listing has received notice in the media, with several questioning why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is assisting the family in their quest, explained that notwithstanding initial scepticism, he considered the plan "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he noted they understood the atypical aspect of their request, and how early in age their son is.
But, they clarified that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already set in".
What exactly does the family mean by "cultural bias"?
It's "everything", he replied. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He stated the older sibling had picked up "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family informed him they wished to avoid the same situation to recur with their younger child.
The plan: To hire a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A lot of the learning at the start here is rather osmotic," explained Adam.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will pick up the British traits they want to instil.
The consultant explained the tutor had to be somebody who went to "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator must be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed him the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or interest in equestrian activities, alpine skiing, creative fields and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
More than that though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son develop into a "UK sophisticate" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he adds.
But, in spite of all this instruction in "Britishness", might the child adopt alleged cultural leaning from the multicultural family he lives with in any case?
"Yes", said he. "They realize this could fail, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he stated.
Impractical
There are some in the private teaching field who have those reservations.
Peter Cui, CEO and founder of an educational organization, who provides individual instructors, commented that "the development of embracing two identities, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
Peter wrote that he had emigrated from China to the UK at the age of seven, and had been brought up understanding and living both cultures. He progressed to study at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that an individual can serve as a living vessel of Britishness, a person who can possibly transplant the qualities of a UK sophisticate onto a one-year-old child, strikes me as idealistic and impractical," he wrote.
"Based on my background, engaging a quintessentially British tutor from early childhood will will not automatically achieve the result they hope for.
"I never had such a figure, and however I have been lucky enough to experience numerous of the experiences they hope for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, self-identity should not be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, UK identity is something Adam hopes can be taught – and marketed.
"I believe the situation that the world views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
