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"A family located in North London is looking for an exceptional and skilled educator to guide their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an British gentleman."

When reading this post, you might naturally overlook the wording "initial stages" as simple a turn of phrase.

Yet, it may be the crucial aspect of this unusual job advert, as it attempts to find a mentor for a one-year-old.

Many of responses have now been submitted since the anonymous family advertised their call for the highly paid tutor, who must be "someone very special".

During the past few weeks, the listing has attracted attention in the press, with several asking why?

Progressive Approach

Adam Caller, chief executive of a global tutoring firm, which is helping the family in their quest, explained that in spite of first doubt, he viewed the plan "forward-looking", and "progressive".

When he spoke with the family, he mentioned they understood the atypical character of their demand, and how young their son is.

Nevertheless, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that age "cultural conditioning had already set in".

What precisely does the family refer to by "cultural leaning"?

It's "all-encompassing", Adam responded. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".

He explained the firstborn had adopted "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had assumed their cultural ways. The family explained to Adam they wished to avoid history to repeat itself with their infant.

The intention: To bring in a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby right from the beginning.

Osmotic Learning

"A great deal of the education at the outset here is rather osmotic," stated Adam.

It's by means of this osmosis that the family are hoping the child will pick up the British traits they want to instil.

Adam explained the tutor had to be someone who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family hope to send their son to".

"The educator simply needs to be the appropriate candidate, they'll be doing things they don't even know they're doing, simply by nature," he added.

Expense Not a Factor

The family explained to him the successful candidate should preferably also have understanding of or enthusiasm in riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of passions.

Furthermore though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to enrol the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an instrument by the time they are about three years old".

In the family's perspective, guiding their son develop into a "British gentleman" will result in accomplishment and provide access.

"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he comments.

But, despite all this tutelage in "English culture", could the child absorb alleged cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he resides with regardless?

"Yes", replied he. "The parents know this might not succeed, but they've just taken the view of, 'we should try and we should start as early as we can', because the price of it is irrelevant," he explained.

Impractical

Several in the tutoring industry who have these doubts.

Another CEO, chief executive of an educational organization, who also offer individual instructors, commented that "the process of becoming bicultural, or actually, forming one's identity, is something that must be grown into, not designed."

Peter wrote that he had emigrated from Asia to the Britain at the period of 7 years old, and had been brought up understanding and practicing dual heritages. He progressed to be educated at a prestigious UK institution.

"The concept that one individual can act as a representation of UK identity, someone who can in some way transfer the attributes of a English gentleman to a 12-month-old child, strikes me as naive and unrealistic," he commented.

"In my experience, having a quintessentially English tutor from infancy will not necessarily create the goal they hope for.

"I wasn't provided with such a tutor, and however I have been privileged enough to experience many of the experiences they hope for their son."

He stated: "The fact is, self-identity cannot be dictated from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."

Acquiring Englishness

Naturally, English culture is something the CEO believes can be taught – and commercialized.

"I think the reality that the global community holds us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating