"Parents located in North London is looking for an extraordinary and skilled educator to guide their most junior child on his first steps to turning into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might easily overlook the phrase "initial stages" as mere an expression.
However, it may be the most important aspect of this unique position posting, as it seeks to find a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of submissions have already been received since the unnamed family published their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "a uniquely qualified person".
In recent few weeks, the advert has gained attention in the press, with many wondering why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is supporting the family in their quest, stated that in spite of early doubt, he considered the plan "visionary", and "advanced".
When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they appreciated the unusual aspect of their requirement, and how immature their son is.
But, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural bias had already taken hold".
But what does the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "all-encompassing", the expert responded. "The way you eat, the way you speak".
He explained the older sibling had picked up "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family told Adam they hoped to prevent history to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To bring in a UK tutor, who must speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby right from the beginning.
Subtle Influence
"Much of the education at the beginning here is kind of absorbed naturally," explained the expert.
It's through this osmosis that the family are aiming the child will adopt the British traits they wish to instil.
Adam noted the tutor must be somebody who studied at "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The tutor simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he added.
Expense Not a Factor
The family informed Adam the selected educator should ideally also have familiarity of or interest 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 hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a variety of courses so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's minds, assisting their son become a "UK sophisticate" will result in achievement and provide access.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he adds.
But, in spite of all this instruction in "English culture", would the child absorb so-called cultural influence from the multicultural family he lives with anyway?
"Yes", said Adam. "The family understand this might not succeed, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as soon as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he said.
Impractical
Several in the tutoring industry who express those doubts.
Another CEO, head and founder of an educational organization, who provides private tutors, wrote that "the journey of becoming bicultural, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not engineered."
He noted that he had emigrated from Asia to the United Kingdom at the time of childhood, and had been brought up understanding and living dual heritages. He progressed to be educated at Cambridge University.
"The concept that an individual can act as a representation of Britishness, an individual who can in some way transfer the attributes of a British gentleman onto a one-year-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unrealistic," he stated.
"In my experience, having a typically British tutor from infancy will not necessarily create the outcome they want.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and yet I have been privileged enough to experience numerous of the experiences they desire for their son."
He stated: "The reality is, cultural identity cannot be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, English culture is something Adam hopes can be taught – and sold.
"In my view the situation that the international society regards us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
