Family offers $225,000 for someone to raise their baby as an “English gentleman”

A family in London is offering £180,000 ($225,000 USD) per year for a private tutor to teach their one-year-old son to become an “English gentleman.”

The unusual listing, reported by the BBC, was posted through Tutors International and calls for “an extraordinary and experienced tutor” to guide the baby “on his first steps to becoming an English gentleman.”

According to Tutors International founder Adam Caller, the parents want to avoid what they describe as “cultural bias,” everyday habits, speech patterns, and behaviors they believe their older child picked up before formal education began.

Parents offer $225,000 for tutor to teach English manners

Caller told the BBC the family “didn’t want to wait any longer” after realizing their first child had already absorbed “really subtle, non-verbal cues” from their surroundings by age five.

The family now plans to bring in a British tutor with Received Pronunciation, ideally someone who attended elite schools and can influence the child “via osmosis.” Caller described the search as “far sighted” and “progressive,” saying the tutor would naturally pass on British traits without consciously trying.

Applicants are also expected to have interests in horse riding, skiing, art, and music, and to ensure the child is “pony riding and picking up an instrument by age three.” The family told the agency that “cost is not relevant” in their pursuit of British refinement.

Critics in the education sector, however, have called the idea “idealistic and unrealistic.” Peter Cui, CEO of Blue Education, argued that identity “cannot be imposed from the outside, it must be chosen, and it must come from within.”

However, Tutors International founder Adam Caller insists there is a market for “buying Britishness,” comparing the demand for elite tutors and etiquette coaches to the rising popularity of businesses like Laura Windsor’s Etiquette Academy, which teaches clients how to dine, converse, and dress “like a British person.”

Whether the experiment succeeds remains to be seen, but the six-figure salary will undoubtedly have caught the eyes of many English etiquette experts.