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"A household based in North London is looking for an remarkable and skilled educator to support their youngest child on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman."

When reading this advertisement, you might easily skip the wording "first-steps" as mere figurative language.

Yet, it may be the most significant part of this unusual job advert, as it seeks to find a tutor for a 12-month-old.

Hundreds of submissions have now been received since the unnamed family advertised their search for the £180k-a-year tutor, who has to be "someone very special".

In recent few weeks, the listing has received notice in the news, with numerous questioning why?

Forward-Thinking Method

Adam Caller, CEO and founder of a global tutoring firm, which is assisting the family in their search, stated that in spite of first doubt, he found the idea "forward-looking", and "innovative".

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

However, they explained that they "were unwilling to delay any longer" to get a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that stage "cultural bias had already taken hold".

But what does the family indicate by "cultural predisposition"?

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

He said the firstborn had picked up "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had taken on their cultural habits. The family informed the consultant they hoped to prevent this pattern to happen again with their infant.

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

Subtle Influence

"A great deal of the learning at the start here is somewhat acquired indirectly," explained the expert.

It's via this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will pick up the UK customs they aim to cultivate.

The consultant said the tutor had to be an individual who went to "the appropriate educational institutions – comparable categories of schools as the family plan to send their son to".

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

Cost Not Relevant

The family explained to him the chosen tutor should ideally also have knowledge of or passion in riding, alpine skiing, artistic pursuits and music so as to shape the child in a diverse set of hobbies.

Additionally though, he explained the family wanted the tutor to sign up the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "horseback riding and picking up an musical instrument by the time they are around three years old".

In the family's minds, assisting their son grow into a "UK sophisticate" will result in success and create opportunities.

"For all the rights and wrongs of that, because it's definitely a class statement," he notes.

However, despite all this guidance in "UK identity", would the child absorb so-called cultural leaning from the multicultural family he resides with in any case?

"Certainly", replied the CEO. "They understand this may not work, but they've merely embraced the perspective of, 'we should try and let's go as soon as we can', because the expense of it is irrelevant," he explained.

Overly Optimistic

There are some in the education sector who express these reservations.

Another CEO, head and founder of a tutoring service, who supplies individual instructors, commented that "the development of embracing two identities, or indeed, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not manufactured."

The expert explained that he had relocated from the Far East to the UK at the time of childhood, and had been brought up experiencing and living two backgrounds. He progressed to learn at the University of Cambridge.

"The idea that an individual can function as a representation of UK identity, a person who can somehow impart the qualities of a British gentleman upon a one-year-old child, strikes me as optimistic and impractical," he stated.

"In my experience, engaging a distinctly UK tutor from early childhood will does not automatically achieve the result they hope for.

"I never had such a tutor, and yet I have been fortunate enough to live several of the experiences they hope for their son."

He stated: "The truth is, personal identity should not be imposed from the outside; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."

Acquiring Englishness

Of course, English culture is something the expert believes can be taught – and marketed.

"In my view the reality that the global community regards us in this regard is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating