"I didn't, personally, have an 'attitude or belief' about breastfeeding beyond expecting that I would do it, and getting on with it."
Of course you did. We have expectations and beliefs about everything that is part of the world we live in - whether they're acknowledged consciously or not.
"Women have babies later in life, in their thirties, perhaps, already with a strong sense of their own self and how their daily life should be."
Yes - and interestingly the group who are most likely to bf and most likely to bf for a year or more ARE women in their late 30's who have had professional careers.
" That might well not include carrying and eight month baby around all day every day giving it frequent feeds."
You don't have to 'carry a baby around' all day to continue breastfeeding. The point I was making about our normal feeding practices undermining long term bf was a fair one, but it's still the case that many women who carry on bf also have normal lives - they work, they look after other children and they participate in social life. At least that's true of the women I know who bf their children long term.
"Unless you are going to unpick the whole of modern society, I don't really how you are going to get away from that."
You don't have to 'unpick the whole of society' - you just have to make it known that long term bf is a) healthy and normal for both mothers and babies and b) possible for most women living 'normal' and 'average' lives, including those women who work, study and have other children.
"I just think that there is much more room in the breastfeeding world for more recognition of personal experience, and less condemnation of anyone who actually does breastfeed but then fails to toe the party line on how wonderful it is!"
The attitudes of almost EVERY mother I know about bf, before they start is shaped utterly by what they know of other people's personal experiences of breastfeeding, which is why you so often hear the classic phrase falling from pregnant women's lips: "I'm going to TRY to breastfeed, but if it doesn't work I'm not going to beat myself up about it." Women in the UK often embark on breastfeeding expecting to fail, and expecting that even if they don't have problems bf, they'll be bottlefeeding by the time their baby is walking.
Celebrities aren't stupid (well,not all of them). CC would have been approached by lobbiests from the bf lobby. She knows that she's being seen as a role model for young bf mothers. It's just a shame she didn't choose to do any reading or deeper thinking on the subject before she opened her mouth. I know if I was going to be questioned on some aspect of my personal experience that had public health implications, I'd want to do a bit of research before spouting off.