"A household based in north London wants to find an extraordinary and experienced tutor to guide their smallest child on his initial journey to growing into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily miss the phrase "first-steps" as just an expression.
However, it might be the most significant element of this distinctive position posting, as it attempts to recruit a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Numerous of submissions have now been received since the unnamed family posted their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has gained attention across the media, with several wondering why?
Forward-Thinking Method
The CEO, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their quest, stated that despite first skepticism, he found the idea "far sighted", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they appreciated the unconventional nature of their request, and how early in age their son is.
However, they explained that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their older child was five, and by that age "cultural bias had already taken hold".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam answered. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family told Adam they hoped to prevent history to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To hire a English tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to influence the baby from the very start.
Osmotic Learning
"Much of the development at the beginning here is rather osmotic," explained the CEO.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they aim to instil.
He explained the tutor must be someone who went to "prestigious academies – similar types 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 carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, simply by nature," he said.
Money No Object
The family told Adam the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in equestrian activities, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to shape the child in a diverse set of hobbies.
Additionally though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a variety of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are around 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 advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he adds.
But, despite all this guidance in "English culture", might the child pick up alleged cultural influence from the multicultural family he resides with in any case?
"Certainly", said the CEO. "The family know this could fail, but they've simply adopted the view of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
There are some in the tutoring industry who have similar concerns.
Peter Cui, head and founder of Blue Education, who supplies personal educators, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or in fact, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
He explained that he had moved from the Far East to the Britain at the time of 7 years old, and had been raised experiencing and living two backgrounds. He progressed to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.
"The idea that an individual can act as a embodiment of Britishness, someone who can possibly impart the characteristics of a British gentleman to a one-year-old child, seems to me idealistic and unfeasible," he commented.
"From my perspective, employing a quintessentially UK tutor from infancy will not necessarily create the goal they hope for.
"I never had such a tutor, and yet I have been lucky enough to live numerous of the opportunities they hope for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, self-identity can not be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Purchasing UK Culture
Certainly, Britishness is something Adam hopes can be taught – and commercialized.
"I think the situation that the global community views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
