"Parents located in the northern part of London wants to find an remarkable and skilled instructor to guide their most junior child on his early path to growing into an British gentleman."
When reading this post, you might naturally skip the phrase "first-steps" as mere an expression.
However, it may be the crucial part of this unique job advert, as it aims to recruit a mentor for a one-year-old.
Many of submissions have already been received since the anonymous family advertised their search for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "someone very special".
In recent few weeks, the advert has attracted attention across the media, with numerous asking why?
Progressive Approach
A tutoring expert, head and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their hunt, stated that despite initial doubt, he found the concept "far sighted", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he said they understood the atypical character of their request, and how early in age their son is.
Nevertheless, they clarified that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had held off until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural conditioning had by then become established".
What exactly did the family mean by "cultural leaning"?
It's "comprehensive", Adam replied. "The way you eat, how you speak".
He stated the elder child had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural habits. The family explained to him they hoped to prevent history to repeat itself with their younger child.
The strategy: To engage a British tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"Much of the learning at the start here is somewhat absorbed naturally," stated Adam.
It's through this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the British traits they wish to cultivate.
He explained the tutor had to be somebody who attended "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The instructor must be the suitable individual, they'll be doing things they may not realize they're doing, just naturally," he said.
Expense Not a Factor
The family told the expert the successful candidate should ideally also have familiarity of or passion in riding, skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to inspire the child in a broad spectrum of passions.
More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a selection of courses so the child would be "horseback riding and learning an musical instrument by the time they are about three years old".
In the family's perspective, helping their son grow into a "British gentleman" will lead to accomplishment and create opportunities.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a status symbol," he comments.
But, notwithstanding all this guidance in "Britishness", could the child pick up so-called cultural leaning from the international family he resides with anyway?
"Certainly", said he. "They realize this could fail, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as quickly as we can', because the cost of it is irrelevant," he said.
Impractical
There are some in the tutoring industry who have those concerns.
Peter Cui, head and founder of a tutoring service, who provides personal educators, stated that "the development of embracing two identities, or actually, becoming oneself, is something that must be grown into, not designed."
Peter noted that he had emigrated from Asia to the UK at the time of 7 years old, and had been brought up knowing and embodying two backgrounds. He progressed to learn at the University of Cambridge.
"The notion that an individual can act as a representation of Britishness, someone who can in some way transplant the attributes of a British gentleman to a 12-month-old child, strikes me as optimistic and unfeasible," he wrote.
"Based on my background, having a quintessentially UK tutor from early childhood will does not instantly create the goal they hope for.
"I never had that kind of mentor, and yet I have been privileged enough to experience many of the experiences they hope for their son."
He added: "The truth is, cultural identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, UK identity is something the expert thinks can be instructed – and marketed.
"I believe the reality that the international society holds us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
