"A household residing in the northern part of London wants to find an exceptional and skilled instructor to support their smallest child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might readily skip the wording "first-steps" as simple figurative language.
However, it may be the crucial element of this distinctive employment listing, as it aims to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.
Hundreds of submissions have now been submitted since the unnamed family posted their call for the £180,000 per year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the listing has attracted attention in the news, with numerous asking why?
Progressive Approach
Adam Caller, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their hunt, stated that despite early skepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "progressive".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they appreciated the unusual aspect of their request, and how young their son is.
However, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their older child was five, and by that point "cultural bias had already become established".
What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", he answered. "How you eat, how you speak".
He explained the firstborn had picked up "very nuanced, unspoken signals" from the family, and had assumed their cultural norms. The family told Adam they did not want history to recur with their younger child.
The intention: To engage a UK tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from day one.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the education at the outset here is somewhat acquired indirectly," stated the expert.
It's by means of this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will acquire the UK customs they want to instil.
Adam explained the tutor had to be someone who went to "prestigious academies – comparable categories of schools as the family aspire to send their son to".
"The educator simply needs to be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they aren't even aware they're doing, effortlessly," he added.
Money No Object
The family informed him the selected educator should ideally also have knowledge of or enthusiasm in horse riding, alpine skiing, creative fields and instrumental training so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.
More than that though, he stated the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a range of courses so the child would be "equestrian training and picking up an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's minds, guiding their son develop into a "English gentleman" will result in success and create opportunities.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a class statement," he adds.
But, despite all this instruction in "Britishness", might the child absorb alleged cultural bias from the international family he is raised by in any case?
"Certainly", said he. "They understand this could fail, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as early as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he explained.
Impractical
Several in the tutoring industry who express similar doubts.
Another CEO, chief executive of a tutoring service, who also offer personal educators, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be experienced personally, not manufactured."
He wrote that he had relocated from the Far East to the UK at the period of childhood, and had been raised experiencing and embodying two backgrounds. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The notion that a single person can function as a embodiment of Britishness, an individual who can in some way transfer the characteristics of a English gentleman upon a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he commented.
"Based on my background, engaging a quintessentially UK tutor from infancy will will not instantly produce the goal they hope for.
"I did not have such a tutor, and however I have been lucky enough to live several of the experiences they hope for their son."
He added: "The fact is, personal identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must come from within."
Buying Britishness
Naturally, Britishness is something the expert believes can be taught – and sold.
"I think the fact that the international society views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
