"A household based in north London is looking for an remarkable and qualified instructor to guide their smallest child on his initial journey to becoming an English gentleman."
Looking at this advertisement, you might easily skip the phrase "first-steps" as just figurative language.
However, it may be the most important aspect of this unusual job advert, as it seeks to recruit a tutor for a one-year-old.
Many of responses have since been submitted since the unnamed family posted their search for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has received attention throughout the press, with several asking why?
Innovative Idea
The CEO, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their hunt, explained that notwithstanding initial scepticism, he considered the concept "forward-looking", and "innovative".
When he met the family, he said they appreciated the atypical nature of their request, and how immature their son is.
However, they stated that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had held off until their firstborn was five, and by that point "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
But what did the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "everything", the expert replied. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".
He said the elder child had picked up "really subtle, unspoken signals" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family explained to the consultant they wished to avoid history to recur with their new baby.
The strategy: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to guide the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the education at the outset here is kind of acquired indirectly," stated Adam.
It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will adopt the British traits they wish to cultivate.
The consultant noted the tutor needed to be an individual who went to "prestigious academies – similar types of schools as the family plan to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he added.
Money No Object
The family explained to him the successful candidate should ideally also have knowledge of or interest in riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
Additionally though, he said the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's perspective, guiding their son become a "British gentleman" will lead to success and open doors.
"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he comments.
Yet, in spite of all this guidance in "Britishness", might the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the multicultural family he lives with in any case?
"Absolutely", answered the CEO. "The family understand this might not succeed, but they've just taken the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as early as we can', because the price of it is not relevant," he said.
Idealistic and Unrealistic
Several in the tutoring industry who express these concerns.
An education leader, chief executive of Blue Education, who supplies personal educators, commented that "the process of embracing two identities, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be experienced personally, not engineered."
Peter wrote that he had moved from Asia to the Britain at the period of childhood, and had been educated understanding and living both cultures. He progressed to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The idea that one individual can function as a living vessel of English culture, a person who can in some way transplant the qualities of a English gentleman upon a infant child, seems to me idealistic and unrealistic," he stated.
"In my experience, employing a quintessentially UK tutor from babyhood will will not necessarily produce the outcome they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to enjoy several of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He added: "The truth is, personal identity cannot be dictated from the outside; it must be selected, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, UK identity is something the expert hopes can be instructed – and sold.
"In my view the situation that the global community holds us in this respect is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
