"A household based in North London is looking for an extraordinary and skilled educator to guide their smallest child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
When reading this post, you might naturally skip the term "first-steps" as just figurative language.
Yet, it may be the most significant element of this unusual position posting, as it seeks to find a tutor for a 12-month-old.
Hundreds of applications have now been submitted since the unidentified family published their call for the £180k-a-year tutor, who must be "a uniquely qualified person".
Over the last few weeks, the advert has attracted notice in the media, with numerous questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
A tutoring expert, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their search, explained that in spite of early scepticism, he found the idea "far sighted", and "advanced".
When he met the family, he mentioned they understood the unusual nature of their demand, and how early in age 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 older child was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had by then taken hold".
But what did the family indicate by "cultural leaning"?
It's "everything", Adam answered. "The manner you eat, the manner you speak".
He said the firstborn had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural norms. The family told him they wished to avoid the same situation to happen again with their younger child.
The intention: To bring in a English tutor, who must speak with RP, to guide the baby from the very start.
Subtle Influence
"A great deal of the learning at the outset here is somewhat absorbed naturally," explained Adam.
It's through this natural absorption that the family are aiming the child will pick up the UK customs they want to impart.
He noted the tutor must be an individual who attended "the appropriate educational institutions – similar types of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The tutor just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Cost Not Relevant
The family told the expert the chosen tutor should preferably also have knowledge of or interest in horse riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and musical activities so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of interests.
Additionally though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a selection of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son become a "English gentleman" will bring about success and create opportunities.
"For all the pros and cons of that, because it's certainly a social class indicator," he notes.
Yet, despite all this instruction in "Britishness", could the child absorb so-called cultural leaning from the international family he is raised by in any case?
"Yes", said Adam. "The parents know this may not work, but they've merely embraced the view of, 'let's give it a go and we should start as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he stated.
Overly Optimistic
A number of in the education sector who express these reservations.
Another CEO, chief executive of a tutoring service, who provides individual instructors, stated that "the process of becoming bicultural, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not engineered."
He noted that he had moved from the Far East to the United Kingdom at the age of seven, and had been brought up understanding and living both cultures. He went on to learn at Cambridge University.
"The notion that a single person can act as a living vessel of Britishness, a person who can possibly impart the characteristics of a British gentleman upon a infant child, strikes me as naive and unrealistic," he commented.
"Based on my background, employing a distinctly English tutor from infancy will does not instantly create the outcome they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and yet I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the opportunities they aspire for their son."
He continued: "The fact is, personal identity can not be forced from the outside influences; it must be chosen, and it must originate internally."
Acquiring Englishness
Certainly, UK identity is something the expert believes can be taught – and sold.
"I think the situation that the international society regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
