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"A family residing in the northern part of London seeks an remarkable and experienced instructor to assist their most junior child on his first steps to growing into an English gentleman."

Looking at this listing, you might naturally overlook the phrase "first-steps" as simple an expression.

However, it might be the most important element of this unique job advert, as it aims to find a teacher for a 12-month-old.

Many of applications have already been received since the unnamed family posted their request for the £180k-a-year tutor, who needs to be "someone very special".

Over the last few weeks, the advert has received attention throughout the press, with many asking why?

Forward-Thinking Method

The CEO, head and founder of an education consultancy, which is assisting the family in their quest, said that notwithstanding first skepticism, he found the concept "visionary", and "innovative".

When he consulted the family, he noted they recognized the unusual character of their request, and how young their son is.

However, they stated that they "didn't want to wait any longer" to hire a tutor, as they had postponed until their firstborn was five, and by that stage "cultural influence had by then set in".

What exactly did the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?

It's "comprehensive", he responded. "The manner you eat, the way you speak".

He said the older sibling had absorbed "very nuanced, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had taken on their cultural norms. The family informed the consultant they hoped to prevent this pattern to recur with their infant.

The intention: To hire a UK tutor, who must speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby from the very start.

Natural Absorption

"A lot of the education at the outset here is rather absorbed naturally," stated the expert.

It's through this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will acquire the English characteristics they want to instil.

Adam said the tutor had to be somebody who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – the same kinds of schools as the family plan to send their son to".

"The instructor just has to be the suitable individual, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he said.

Expense Not a Factor

The family told him the selected educator should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in riding, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to influence the child in a broad spectrum of hobbies.

More than that though, he explained the family hoped the tutor to register the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and starting an instrument by the time they are around three years old".

In the family's minds, guiding their son become a "English gentleman" will result in success and provide access.

"Taking into account the rights and wrongs of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he adds.

Yet, despite all this tutelage in "English culture", would the child adopt what is termed cultural bias from the globally influenced family he is raised by anyway?

"Yes", answered he. "The parents know this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and let's go as early as we can', because the expense of it is not relevant," he said.

Impractical

Several in the private teaching field who express similar concerns.

Peter Cui, head and founder of Blue Education, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the development of becoming bicultural, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."

He noted that he had relocated from China to the Britain at the period of seven, and had been brought up experiencing and practicing both cultures. He progressed to learn at Cambridge University.

"The notion that an individual can function as a embodiment of UK identity, an individual who can possibly impart the attributes of a British gentleman to a infant child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he stated.

"From my perspective, employing a typically British tutor from early childhood will not automatically create the result they hope for.

"I wasn't provided with that kind of mentor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to experience many of the situations they desire for their son."

He continued: "The reality is, personal identity should not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must come from within."

Buying Britishness

Of course, UK identity is something the expert hopes can be taught – and commercialized.

"I think the situation that the world views us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating