he learned at his grandfather's knee

明日はいよいよ総選挙投票日です。私も明日はなんとか時間を作って選挙に行きたいと思っています。ニュースなどでは自民党優勢か？などと言われていますが、そんな中Reutersには総裁である安倍元首相についての記事がありました。

Japan's Shinzo Abe: comeback kid with conservative agenda

(Reuters) - Japan's Shinzo Abe may be thoroughly modern when it comes to pitching his policies on a widely followed Facebook page, but his conservative agenda for shedding the shackles of post-war pacifism is one that he learned at his grandfather's knee.

The dapper, soft-spoken Abe first took office in 2006 as Japan's youngest prime minister since World War Two. But he quit suddenly after a year plagued by scandals in his cabinet, public outrage at lost pension records and his Liberal Democratic Party's big defeat in an election for parliament's upper house.
Now with a hawkish Abe again at the helm, the LDP -- ignominiously ousted in 2009 -- is expected to make a comeback in Sunday's poll for parliament's powerful lower chamber.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/14/us-japan-election-abe-idUSBRE8BD04520121214

彼の保守的政策はお祖父さんから影響を受けているのですね。それ一番如実に表している一文がhe learned at his grandfather's kneeです。これはat one’s mother’s kneeで「母のひざのもとで[の];子供の頃に[の]」という意味(『ジーニアス英和辞典』第4版、大修館書店)があるのですが、at his grandfather’ kneeはそのバリエーションです。「子供の頃に」と言いたい時の表現として使えるので、会話の中で使えるように例文でチェックして覚えておきます。(EnDough)