My children dislike this phrase because it highlights their lineage back to me. Used here, “a chip off the old block” means a person or thing that derives from the source or parentage. It first appears in the English language in or around 1621 when Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, giving his sermon said, “Am not I a child of the same Adam … a chip of the same block, with him?”
Chips off the Block
Agrigirl's Blog 