"The Singer Solution to World Poverty" response

My initial reaction to reading this article was that Peter Singer, the Australian philosopher that the article was based on, had a great point. As I read through it, and saw some of the statistics and numbers the author was talking about, I felt guilty as an American citizen who doesn't give to charity. I am an extremely blessed person, living in Hawaii and going to Punahou School, and there are so few in the world that are given the same opportunities that I have been given. If anyone should be donating to charity, it should be people like myself who are so lucky. Well, that was only my first reaction to it. After thinking about it more and after having had a class discussion about it, I feel like this article is a DESPERATE attempt to guilt people into giving to charity. I think giving money to charity is a positive and necessary thing, but I think the article just doesn't do a good job making me want to do anything about it myself. Does this make me a bad person though? I don't think so. First of all, I don't have spare money to give to charity. My parents work their hearts out making a living for my family. People that work hard in life and put in the time and energy to make a successful living should not have to be forced to giving their earnings away. It is very unfortunate that children are born into homelessness and poverty and we do need to help them out if we can. Guilt-tripping people into doing so is just not the right approach and that's where the article fails. Also, helping them is important, but not as important as living our own lives and achieving our own goals too. We can't ruin our own lives trying to save others. Or, I think it is honorable if some do, but I don't think it is a reasonable task to give to everyone in the world with some money in their pockets. Overall, giving to charity is a great thing to do, and I want to do what I can, but the article didn't do a great job in convincing me that I really need to make a change in my lifestyle.