"A family based in North London seeks an remarkable and qualified educator to support their smallest child on his early path to growing into an English gentleman."
Looking at this post, you might naturally skip the phrase "first-steps" as simple a turn of phrase.
But, it may be the crucial element of this distinctive position posting, as it seeks to hire a tutor for a one-year-old.
Numerous of applications have since been submitted since the unnamed family posted their call for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".
Over the last few weeks, the post has attracted interest across the media, with several questioning why?
Forward-Thinking Method
Adam Caller, CEO and founder of Tutors International, which is helping the family in their quest, said that despite initial skepticism, he viewed the concept "visionary", and "innovative".
When he consulted the family, he mentioned they recognized the unusual character of their demand, and how immature their son is.
But, they explained that they "preferred not to postpone any longer" to engage a tutor, as they had postponed until their elder sibling was five, and by that point "cultural influence had by then become established".
What precisely did the family indicate by "cultural bias"?
It's "comprehensive", he replied. "The way you eat, the manner you speak".
He explained the firstborn had adopted "extremely delicate, body language" from the family, and had assumed their cultural habits. The family explained to him they wished to avoid this pattern to happen again with their younger child.
The plan: To hire a English tutor, who needs to speak with standard English accent, to shape the baby right from the beginning.
Natural Absorption
"A great deal of the development at the start here is somewhat absorbed naturally," said the CEO.
It's through this subtle influence that the family are expecting the child will pick up the English characteristics they want to instil.
The consultant explained the tutor had to be an individual who went to "prestigious academies – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".
"The educator just has to be the right kind of person, they'll be performing things they don't even know they're doing, just naturally," he commented.
Money No Object
The family explained to the expert the successful candidate should preferably also have familiarity of or passion in riding, winter sports, the arts and musical activities so as to influence the child in a wide range of passions.
More than that though, he said the family hoped the tutor to sign up the child on a variety of classes so the child would be "equestrian training and learning an instrument by the time they are around three years old".
In the family's view, guiding their son grow into a "British gentleman" will lead to success and create opportunities.
"Considering the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's undoubtedly a social class indicator," he notes.
But, despite all this tutelage in "Britishness", could the child pick up what is termed cultural leaning from the globally influenced family he resides with anyway?
"Absolutely", said Adam. "The parents understand this could fail, but they've just taken the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we'll proceed as early as we can', because the price of it is not a concern," he said.
Impractical
A number of in the tutoring industry who express those doubts.
An education leader, chief executive of an educational organization, who provides individual instructors, wrote that "the development of becoming bicultural, or actually, discovering oneself, is something that must be grown into, not manufactured."
Peter noted that he had relocated from the Far East to the Britain at the period of seven, and had been brought up knowing and practicing both cultures. He went on to study at a prestigious UK institution.
"The concept that one individual can act as a living vessel of UK identity, someone who can in some way transfer the qualities of a UK sophisticate onto a 12-month-old child, seems to me idealistic and unrealistic," he wrote.
"From my perspective, engaging a quintessentially British tutor from babyhood will not automatically create the result they desire.
"I never had such a figure, and nevertheless I have been privileged enough to live numerous of the opportunities they desire for their son."
He continued: "The truth is, cultural identity can not be forced from the external environment; it must be chosen, and it must be internally driven."
Acquiring Englishness
Of course, UK identity is something the expert thinks can be instructed – and marketed.
"In my view the reality that the world views us in this light is something that we should be cherishing|valuing|appreciating
