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"A family located in north London seeks an remarkable and experienced instructor to support their smallest child on his first steps to becoming an British gentleman."

When reading this advertisement, you might naturally overlook the term "beginning" as just a turn of phrase.

Yet, it might be the crucial part of this distinctive job advert, as it aims to hire a mentor for a one-year-old.

Many of responses have already been received since the unidentified family posted their request for the highly paid tutor, who has to be "an exceptional individual".

Over the last few weeks, the listing has gained attention throughout the media, with many wondering why?

Progressive Approach

A tutoring expert, chief executive of an education consultancy, which is supporting the family in their quest, stated that in spite of initial skepticism, he considered the plan "forward-looking", and "advanced".

When he spoke with the family, he said they recognized the unconventional character of their request, and how immature their son is.

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

What exactly does the family refer to by "cultural predisposition"?

It's "everything", he replied. "How you eat, how you speak".

He explained the firstborn had picked up "really subtle, non-verbal cues" from the family, and had adopted their cultural ways. The family told the consultant they wished to avoid the same situation to happen again with their new baby.

The strategy: To bring in a UK tutor, who should speak with standard English accent, to influence the baby from the very start.

Subtle Influence

"A great deal of the education at the beginning here is rather osmotic," explained the CEO.

It's by means of this osmosis that the family are expecting the child will adopt the English characteristics they want to cultivate.

The consultant said the tutor must be somebody who attended "the right kinds of schools – the same kinds of schools as the family hope to send their son to".

"The educator simply needs to be the right kind of person, they'll be carrying out things they don't even know they're doing, effortlessly," he commented.

Money No Object

The family informed the expert the chosen tutor should preferably also have familiarity of or interest in equestrian activities, winter sports, artistic pursuits and music so as to shape the child in a broad spectrum of interests.

More than that though, he said the family wanted the tutor to register the child on a range of lessons so the child would be "pony-riding and learning an instrument by the time they are approximately three years old".

In the family's view, assisting their son become a "UK sophisticate" will lead to achievement and provide access.

"For all the advantages and disadvantages of that, because it's definitely a social class indicator," he notes.

But, in spite of all this guidance in "Britishness", might the child pick up what is termed cultural bias from the globally influenced family he resides with regardless?

"Absolutely", replied he. "They understand this may not work, but they've merely embraced the attitude of, 'why not attempt it and we should start as early as we can', because the cost of it is not a concern," he said.

Idealistic and Unrealistic

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

Peter Cui, CEO and founder of Blue Education, who provides personal educators, stated that "the development of embracing two identities, or in fact, discovering oneself, is something that must be lived into, not designed."

He noted that he had emigrated from China to the UK at the period of childhood, and had been brought up understanding and living two backgrounds. He went on to learn at a prestigious UK institution.

"The notion that a single person can act as a living vessel of UK identity, an individual who can possibly transplant the qualities of a UK sophisticate upon a one-year-old child, seems to me optimistic and impractical," he wrote.

"In my experience, engaging a typically UK tutor from infancy will does not automatically achieve the result they desire.

"I did not have such a figure, and yet I have been privileged enough to live several of the experiences they hope for their son."

He continued: "The fact is, personal identity cannot be imposed from the external environment; it must be selected, and it must come from within."

Buying Britishness

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

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