Well, as I said in my downvoted posts, our relationship is extremely informal. We are closer than the average mentor/mentee. I am aware that I was not being professional, but I am not sure why most posters are ignoring the fact that I specifically stated that this is not a case of professional mentorship. She has been my mentor for a while, before I started attending her work with her.

It wasn't like she said, "I am going to make you my assistant, do this for me." She said, more or less, "You've been on enough of these. You should be my assistant and put that on your resume." I laughed it off and I told, that I was just grateful for her letting me shadow. I mentioned my parents, because we've been talking regularly about my parents assuming I am some kind of bum. The parents comment was not about "babysitting" as some other poster implied, but a reference to many conversations we have had in the past.

I'm saying that I interpreted her comments as saying, definitely, that it was no big deal to call myself her assistant, because our relationship is not even mostly professional. And should I get in an interview, I had no intention of lying. I am/was going to explain the mentorship process. That's really what it comes down to.

As for why I would not use her as a reference is because I do not work in the field she works in. The position I applied for has nothing to do with what she does, which is why it wasn't on my resume in the first place. It's not that I didn't want her as a reference, it's that for that position, I had no real need for her to be a professional reference. Perhaps a character one, but that's a different ballgame.