Commas and lists--please help settle a dispute

[Cleanthatroomnow]

DH says a list in a sentence should be punctuated like this:

"I have a cat, a dog, a fish, and a fox"

My DCs say school taught them to do this:

"I have a cat, a dog, a fish and a fox"

Does the "and" take the place of the final comma? DH says no, because that makes the fish and fox one "item"??

I'm confused.

A comma after an 'and' is called an Oxford comma or serial comma and is only needed where it changes or clarifies meaning.

A fish and a fox do not become one item because they are separated by 'and'.

Some examples of how you might use it:
We had soup, spaghetti and meatballs, and ice cream. (The spaghetti and meatballs came together, the ice cream was separate.)
This shirt comes in red, yellow, black, and white. (But not black and white.)

No comma after "and".

Check out number 14 for a graphic example!

www.buzzfeed.com/aj8/19-jokes-only-grammar-nerds-will-understand-cfe3

In US usage, most style guides, especially academic ones, either mandate or recommend use of the serial comma.

Thanks. DH is US educated, so that may explain the different way of using punctuation. Don't want him to win the argument, though!

In the US, we sometimes call it the Harvard comma.