"A family residing in North London seeks an exceptional and qualified instructor to guide their most junior child on his early path to turning into an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might easily miss the phrase "beginning" as just a turn of phrase.
However, it might be the crucial element of this unusual position posting, as it attempts to find a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have already been sent in since the anonymous family advertised their call for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "a uniquely qualified person".
During the past few weeks, the listing has received interest in the news, with several wondering why?
Innovative Idea
A tutoring expert, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their quest, stated that despite first scepticism, he considered the idea "visionary", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he mentioned they appreciated the unconventional aspect of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
However, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural influence had already set in".
What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", he responded. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the older sibling had picked up "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family informed Adam they hoped to prevent history to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To hire a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to shape the baby from day one.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is kind of absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will adopt the British traits they want to instil.
He said the tutor had to be someone who went to "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Money No Object
The family told Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
More than that though, he stated the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an tool by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, assisting their son become a "British gentleman" will bring about success and open doors.
"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a class statement," he adds.
However, notwithstanding all this tutelage in "UK identity", could the child adopt alleged cultural bias from the international family he is raised by anyway?
"Yes", replied the CEO. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'we should try and let's go as quickly as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he said.
Overly Optimistic
Several in the education sector who express these doubts.
Peter Cui, chief executive of an educational organization, who supplies personal educators, wrote that "the process of adopting dual cultures, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
Peter explained that he had emigrated from Asia to the United Kingdom at the age of 7 years old, 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 Britishness, someone who can somehow transfer the qualities of a British gentleman to a infant child, strikes me as naive and impractical," he wrote.
"From my perspective, having a quintessentially English tutor from infancy will not automatically achieve the goal they want.
"I never had such a figure, and yet I have been privileged enough to experience numerous of the situations they hope for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, cultural identity should not be dictated from the outside; it must be embraced, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, English culture is something the CEO hopes can be educated – and sold.
"In my view the reality that the international society holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
