"Parents located in North London wants to find an exceptional and experienced instructor to assist their most junior child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this advertisement, you might naturally skip the term "first-steps" as mere figurative language.
However, it could be the most significant part of this unique position posting, as it aims to find a teacher for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of responses have since been sent in since the anonymous family advertised their call for the highly paid tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".
During the past few weeks, the post has gained attention throughout the press, with many questioning why?
Progressive Approach
The CEO, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is helping the family in their search, explained that despite initial doubt, he viewed the plan "visionary", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual nature of their request, and how young their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had waited until their older child was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already become established".
What precisely did the family mean by "cultural predisposition"?
It's "all-encompassing", he responded. "How you eat, the way you speak".
He said the older sibling had adopted "very nuanced, body language" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family explained to him they did not want this pattern to happen again with their younger child.
The intention: To engage a English tutor, who should speak with Received Pronunciation, to guide the baby from the very start.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the outset here is rather osmotic," stated the CEO.
It's through this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will pick up the UK customs they want to instil.
The consultant noted the tutor needed to be somebody who studied at "the right kinds of schools – comparable categories of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The instructor simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Cost Not Relevant
The family informed Adam the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in riding, winter sports, creative fields and instrumental training so as to shape the child in a diverse set of interests.
Additionally though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to enrol the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".
In the family's perspective, assisting their son grow into a "British gentleman" will result in success and create opportunities.
"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he adds.
Yet, despite all this guidance in "UK identity", would the child pick up what is termed cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he is raised by in any case?
"Certainly", answered he. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as soon as we can', because the cost of it is not relevant," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the education sector who share these concerns.
Peter Cui, chief executive of a tutoring service, who also offer personal educators, stated that "the journey of embracing two identities, or indeed, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
The expert explained that he had emigrated from the Far East to the Britain at the age of seven, and had been educated knowing and living dual heritages. He continued to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that an individual can serve as a embodiment of English culture, someone who can possibly transfer the characteristics of a British gentleman to a one-year-old child, strikes me as optimistic and impractical," he wrote.
"From my perspective, having a typically UK tutor from babyhood will not instantly create the outcome they hope for.
"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and yet I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He stated: "The fact is, cultural identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be embraced, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, Britishness is something the expert thinks can be instructed – and marketed.
"In my view the situation that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
