How often should I intervene when my toddler daughter is on the playground?

Normally, I am fairly confident that I’m doing and OK job with my daughter, but I was wondering about how to deal with stuff when she’s on the playground with other kids. I can’t tell if I am being inconsiderate of other parent’s feelings or if our parenting styles just clash and I should buck up and accept that what I do with my daughter is going to sometimes make parents uncomfortable.

My daughter is almost 17 months old. She is almost always the youngest kid on the playground. The kids are usually 2 – 3 years older than her. I never leave her unsupervised, and if the kids on the playground are too much older or getting too wild, I take her away.

But when the kids are all preschoolers and younger, I let her go free. I stay close by to make sure she never gets anxious, does anything unsafe, or like hits or bites (she never has) but I don’t interfere with anything that goes on between her and the other kids.

She can’t climb on the equipment very well yet, so she mostly just runs around on the ground following kids. She will sometimes try to imitate their actions. Sometimes I can tell the kids get annoyed with her. They push her out of the way and tell her she’s too little to play with them. She never gets upset. She just wanders away and finds someone else to follow.

Frequently, when my daughter gets on the playground, there are at least one or two other mothers who start to get really nervous. They will start shouting at their kids to stay away from the baby. They will start talking to themselves loudly so that I can hear “She’s too little to be out there on her own. Someone should take her away.”

I think she’s doing just fine. If the kids are over 5 or 6, I WILL take her away. If the kids seem like they are getting too wild for her, I WILL take her away. But when she’s out there, the 3 and 4 year olds mostly ignore her. Sometimes they will play with her.

I don’t think we should have to leave the playground just because other parents want me to, but I’d like some other opinions. Maybe I am too laid back and need to mom it up a bit more.